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A 43-year-old man is suspected of killing his wife in the Basque Country. The husband of Laure Zacchello, who has been missing for over a week, is under investigation for “voluntary homicide of a spouse”.
Concern is prevalent in the Basque Country, as Laure Zacchello, a 43-year-old mother of three, has been missing for over a week. The woman was last seen early in the morning on Friday, June 21, in the village of Urrugne, located not far from Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). The forty-year-old was in the process of divorcing her husband: the latter is currently under investigation for “spousal homicide”, as announced by Jérôme Bourrier, public prosecutor, at a press conference held on Thursday, June 27. The Bayonne public prosecutor’s office fears that Laure Zacchello is “possibly deceased, possibly the victim of intentional homicide by her spouse”.
In this sense, the public prosecutor affirms that a body of “serious and consistent” evidence points to the husband of the former nurse as the main suspect in this case. The person concerned – a former reserve officer of the national gendarmerie who became a teacher – was placed in police custody. Anyone who also practices sport shooting would fully fit “into a survivalist line” in the eyes of investigators. Questioned about the disappearance of his wife, the man – also aged 43 – led investigators on a false trail during his interview, leading them to a “kind of hiding place in which he has survival rations”. From his former job, the suspect had also kept a large arsenal of war in two strong cabinets which were in the couple’s bedroom.
A “cold” and “mute” man
Investigators wondered about the relationship the suspect had with the forty-year-old. According to the Bayonne public prosecutor’s office, his gradual separation from Laure Zacchello was “obviously resented by the accused”. In recent months, the teacher has reported behavior that is, to say the least, worrying, if not threatening, towards his wife. On February 7, Laure Zacchello alerted the authorities claiming that she and her partner had had a violent argument during which he tried to take her handbag. The mother did not give in and bit her partner on the arm.
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She also noticed suspicious banking transactions on her bank account. She also indicated that the keys to her business premises had disappeared and that her email had been hacked. While the couple was in the process of divorcing, Laure Zacchello claimed that she “slept on the couch with her children, with her bag next to her and had placed objects on the floor so that she could hear her partner enter the room”. The investigators described a man who was “cold, mute, without empathy” and who, during his police custody, never seemed to care “about the future or fate of his wife”.
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The forty-year-old is also suspected of having staged his attack: on Friday, June 21, while his wife was missing, he was found lying on the ground in front of his home, with a concrete block placed next to him. The individual had head injuries: tests confirm that his trauma would be “compatible with a loss of consciousness but also with a violent effort”. “He has scratch marks on his hands, legs, which could be compatible with scratches from brambles… Afterwards, he is an individual who practices a form of survivalism.” In police custody, the suspect will claim to remember nothing about that day of June 21. The investigation is continuing and searches are still being organized to find the forty-year-old.
