Marjorie, 26, crossed paths with the suspect in the murder of a homeless man in Lyon, killed with a cinder block. Attacked on a train between Marseille and Nice by the latter, she allowed his arrest.
It was a return to the usual work. Tuesday, November 12, shortly before 7 p.m., Marjorie, 26, boarded a train at Marseille Saint-Charles station. The Toulonnaise returns home after her day of work.
But while she is looking for a place to sit, she crosses paths with a man who turns out to be the main suspect in the murder of a homeless man killed with a cinder block in Lyon and in several other attempts. And without knowing it, it is she herself who allows his arrest, after having informed the police.
“When I wanted to approach a place to sit, this man went in the opposite direction and wanted to pass. I stood aside to let him pass and he pushed me very strongly”, she recalls at the microphone of BFMTV.
“He was shouting, he threatened me in English”
In the TER corridor, Marjorie does not want to let this happen and demands a minimum of politeness from the man who has just violently jostled her. But the man does not intend to apologize.
“He was shouting, he threatened me in English, he didn’t speak French at all anyway,” explains Marjorie.
To our colleagues from Le Parisien, she specifies that she even received a big kick in the back.
Terrified, she decides to notify the SNCF via the emergency number to warn of an attack on the train. At Toulon station, the train stops longer than expected. In reality, the controllers have just notified the police, who arrive on site.
“The police came directly to pick him up from the train and then took me out,” the young woman told BFMTV.
Suspected of murder and several attacks
Initially thinking that it was a “classic” case, the police asked Marjorie to come the next day, Wednesday, to the police station to file a complaint. But in the meantime, while the suspect is taken into custody, an officer recognizes him.
Then quickly, the warrants issued against him are examined and the police realize that the individual they have just arrested is cited in several cases of attempted murder in France, but also in the Netherlands.
“Finally they called me an hour later, around 9 p.m., to tell me that the person was much more dangerous and that I had to come to the police station immediately,” says Marjorie.
“That’s when I learned that I was on the train with an assassin, who had killed several people in several countries,” she adds. In reality, the man, who is still suspected of the facts, is said to have killed a homeless person in Lyon on the night of Sunday November 10 to Monday November 11.
The other charges against him are attempted murder. The first attributed to him took place in Dijon, in Côte d'Or, on July 25, against a 42-year-old woman. The latter was hit in the head by one or more stones and received 10 days of ITT.
A few months later, on October 23, 2024, a man sleeping on the square in front of the Évry-Courcouronnes station (Essonne) received a concrete block on the head. Seriously injured, he received a 45-day ITT.
Seven days later, an attempted homicide took place in Strasbourg on a homeless person in the city center on October 30. In a press release, the public prosecutor indicates that, although the victim's vital prognosis was initially compromised, his life “is no longer in danger”. An investigation is still underway into this case and the magistrate specifies that there is “no objective link” with the others at the moment.
A video of an attack in the Netherlands
At the beginning of November, the case escalated when the suspect crossed the borders and went to the Netherlands. In Rotterdam more precisely, a port city of more than 650,000 souls.
On the night of November 4 to 5, a 37-year-old homeless man was the victim of a violent attack with the same modus operandi: he received a concrete block in the head. Hospitalized in serious condition, the man is still in a coma.
The Dutch police, who collect the video surveillance images, communicate quickly on the case to try to find the suspect. Especially since in two videos, the man is with his face uncovered.
But he managed to leave the country to return to France, to Lyon. It is in the capital of Gaul that a homeless Moldovan national is killed. Once again, the concrete block found bloodied near the body, in the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon, echoes the other cases. The Lyon public prosecutor's office opened an investigation for assassination after these events.
To BFMTV, the Toulon public prosecutor indicates that the suspect was placed in detention in Toulon, pending his transfer to Évry-Courcouronnes. Once transferred, he will be presented to an investigating judge.
Martin Regley Journalist
