A man was arrested this Monday, November 25, suspected of having killed two women in 1988 and 2000 in Isère.
For the families of the victims, this progress in the investigation revives the hope of finding the murderer.
The identification of the suspect was possible thanks to the discovery of his DNA.
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The 8 p.m.
Investigators may have finally got their hands on the murderer of Nathalie Boyer and Leila Afif, both killed in Isère, on August 3, 1988 and May 7, 2000 respectively. Suspected of being linked to these two crimes, a A man in his sixties, already known to the courts, was arrested in Burgundy this Monday, November 25. He has since been questioned in police custody in Grenoble.
Files taken from scratch by the cold case center
This arrest was able to take place thanks to the work of the cold case unit, dedicated to unresolved cases, of the Nanterre judicial court (Hauts-de-Seine), as shown in the TF1 news video at the top of this article. The files on these murders were restarted from scratch, looking for any previously forgotten clues that could be brought to light thanks to new modern investigative techniques.
The suspect’s DNA was first discovered in the seals of the Leila Afif case, a 40-year-old mother shot and found in a canal. The investigators then made the link with the death, which occurred in the same geographical area, of a young woman, Nathalie Boyer, whose throat was slit at the age of 15 after going for a walk. This progress in the investigation represents great hope for those close to her: “When we come back to see a family 36 years after the events, to tell them that a person is in police custody and that they are perhaps the perpetrator, it is obviously a set of mixed feelings. Knowing what he did, how he did it… This truth is not yet within reach.”tempers their lawyer, Me Corinne Herrmann, at the microphone of TF1.
A link with the disappearance of Charazed Bendouiou, 10 years old?
Other criminal cases could soon move forward, because Nathalie Boyer is one of the “disappeared from Isère”, around ten children who disappeared or were found dead in the department in the 1990s and 2000s. Among these files, there is that by Charazed Bendouiou. She disappeared in 1987 at the age of 10, while she was playing outside her building in Bourgoin-Jallieu.
She was never found, but her sister remains more hopeful than ever that she will one day know the truth: “We automatically wonder whether there is a link or not with the other affairs in Isère. We see that it works. I have the complete history and I can clearly see that it has progressed, but here, we see frankly that there is a huge step that has been taken.”
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The suspect’s custody is due to end this Friday morning. He could then be referred to Nanterre for possible indictment.
