The investigation continues to find Laure Zacchello, a mother of three children, missing since June 21, 2024 in the Urrugne sector (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). Her husband was quickly indicted for “spousal murder”then placed in pre-trial detention.
Jérôme Bourrier, public prosecutor of Bayonne, assured on Thursday June 27 that if “many uncertainties” still hovering, “serious and consistent evidence leads us to believe that she is probably dead, possibly the victim of intentional homicide by a spouse”.
An appeal for witnesses was also launched by the judicial police in order to collect information, especially concerning the day of June 21, from 8:30 a.m. to 8:50 p.m.
A very tense family situation
“This weekend, I experienced a very stressful, not to say terrorizing, relational situation, where I found myself without the ability to physically extract myself and without a means of communicating with the outside world… I was very afraid for my life and even that of my 3 children. » This comment left by Laure Zacchello on Instagram sadly reflects the situation in which the mother found herself: terrorized by her ex-husband.
Since February, she has been going through a divorce. A separation clearly badly experienced by her husband. The investigation with the victim’s relatives will shed light on a difficult family context.
Read also: Pyrénées-Atlantiques: searches to find a woman, her ex-partner indicted
In the first days of their separation, arguments broke out. The husband tries to grab his wife’s purse, “and she would have bitten him”reports the public prosecutor of Bayonne.
The couple finally decided, in order not to disturb the children’s balance, to alternate their care in their house in Urrugne. The beginning of the ordeal for this trained nurse who opened a “psychogenealogy” practice.
When she looks after the children at the family home, she sleeps with them in the living room, after scattering things on the floor to alert her if her husband enters the house. She reports a situation of harassment to the police, but Laure Zacchello never wanted to file a complaint.
A possible staging of an assault
It was the sister of the accused who alerted the police after discovering, on June 21, the body of her brother unconscious in the garden of the family home, a wound on the head, a concrete block next to him. On his body, “bruises and scratches”. In the House, “no traces of struggle” but the personal effects of the forty-year-old, reports l’AFP.
A “possible staging” According to the prosecution, in light of the testimonies of relatives and writings of the mother of the family, who appeared ” terrorized “ by the ex-spouse.
An automatic pistol and a submachine gun have disappeared from the house, Jérôme Bourrier points out. They were kept in safes in the master bedroom, which were “open but not forced”Concerning the behavior of the spouse in police custody, the public prosecutor describes “a cold, mute and unempathetic personality”, and states that he does not seem to care about the future of his wife.
A survivalist husband and gun enthusiast
The investigation reveals that the 43-year-old suspect is athletic, he is also a PE teacher and was a reserve officer in the gendarmerie until 2020. He is also a hunter and sports shooter, and owned several weapons. This important arsenal was declared and locked in two strong cabinets, but everything was removed when the police arrived.
After several hours in police custody, the suspect will end up leading police investigators to one of his « caches » in the Basque countryside. In one of them, he hides survival rations and equipment in case of extreme crisis, which places him in a survivalist movement.
The justice system then suspects him of having hidden his wife’s body in one of his hiding places or a remote place that he might know about. Moreover, the scratches and bruises he has on his body could be due to a passage through brambles or dense vegetation.
