Thursday August 4, 1988, the body of Nathalie Boyer, 15 years old, was discovered on the edge of a wood, in the town of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, in Isère, by two SNCF agents. The young woman was beaten with a knife, then slit. If, according to the pathologist, the victim was not raped, nothing excludes an attack with sexual connotations. What is certain is that his murderer knows the area very well. The file of violent individuals and sexual maniacs is searched, but yields nothing. Three years after the murder, the case was dismissed.
It was only twenty years later, in 2008, that lawyer Corinne Hermann is requesting a new examination of four unsolved crimes in the department, including that of Nathalie Boyer. “It should be noted that the gendarmerie has set up a regional cold-case unit, which exists almost nowhere else in France to take over these cases. They have the advantage of knowing the terrain, explains the lawyer, invited in The Hour of Crime. I would like to say that at the time, we asked that all the files of these children be sent to the pole. It turns out that the Boyer file was next to the Afif file.”
However, when the body of Leïla Afif, in 2000, no link was established between the two cases. This 40-year-old mother was found in the Bourbre canal, in La Verpillière, just a few kilometers from where Nathalie Boyer was discovered 12 years earlier. The crimes seemed, at the time, “too different”. Three years later, the case suffered the same fate: the case was dismissed.
A suspect 36 years later
With the opening, in 2022, of the new cold-case center, hope is reborn for the families of Nathalie Boyer and Leïla Afif. And Monday November 25, 2024, the gendarmes of the Grenoble research section arrest Mohammed C.62 ans. He was twenty-six when Nathalie Boyer was killed, thirty-eight when Laïla Afif died. Further DNA comparisons pointed to him as the possible suspect.
Especially since this man has a criminal record. “He was convicted on January 6, 2004 by the Vienna Criminal Court for sexual assault on his daughter for acts from 1992 to 2002. And moreover, for violence against his wife and his daughter between 2000 and 2002. We have an element of the profile which is fundamental, reports Thomas Prouteau, head of the Police-Justice department at RTL. There was a hole in the racket, because there should have been a DNA sample taken at that time.”
The man was interrogated for 96 hours. “He absolutely did not admit to the homicides. He disputes the facts for which he was indicted, yet there is DNA and there is a lot of it according to the investigators.indicates Thomas Prouteau. “For the moment, he is presumed innocent. We will have to complete the investigation, but he is nevertheless indicted for the assassination of Leïla Afif and for the murder of Nathalie Boyer. He is in pre-trial detention, specifies Me Corinne Herrmann, lawyer for Nathalie Boyer's family. Did he commit other crimes? It will be up to the judge and the investigators to carefully reconstruct his journey and check if we have any elements. A lot of people knew him in the region, a lot of people can give us the information we need.”
Several disappearances and murders in Isère have still not been elucidated to this day, like the case of little Ludovic January, kidnapped on March 17, 1983, in front of his big brother, or Grégory Dubrulle, on July 9, 1983, left for dead by a man who had smashed his skull. For many years, Férouze Bendouiou has also fought tirelessly to know the truth about the disappearance of his little sister Charazed, July 8, 1987.
Guests from “Hour of Crime”
– Me Corinne Herrmann, lawyer at the Paris bar and lawyer for the family of Nathalie Boyer.
– Serge Pueyo, journalist, RTL correspondent in Grenoble and the Alps.
-Thomas Prouteau, head of the Police-Justice department at RTL.
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