In 2004, the affair stirred public opinion. Jonathan Coulom, originally from Cher, disappeared on the night of April 6 to 7 from a vacation center in Saint-Brévin-les-Pins in Loire-Atlantique while he was in sea school. His body was discovered on May 19, tied up and weighted down with a concrete blockin a pond near Guérande, 25 kilometers from the place of the kidnapping. The child was 10 years old.
Twenty years after the events, the alleged murderer will
appear in front of the Assistes de Loire-Atlantique. He is a German, already convicted for the murders of three children.
Murder of little Jonathan: who is Martin Ney?
Aged 53, Martin Ney a heavy legal past in Germany, his country of origin. In January 2021, he was handed over to the French authorities and indicted in Nantes for “murder of a minor under 15 years of age and arrest, kidnapping and sequestration, or arbitrary diversion of minors under 15 years of age”recalls the newspaper
20 Minutes. A European arrest warrant was issued in October 2019.
It is the testimony of Martin Ney’s fellow inmate
who relaunched the investigation. He claimed to have collected the defendant’s confession. Martin Ney was arrested in 2011 in Hamburg and then life imprisonment
accompanied by a 15-year security sentence for the murders of three boys between 1992 and 2001. He admitted the facts. Ex-educator, this sexual predator was found guilty of sexually abusing 40 boys, according to the German daily
Bild.
Murder of little Jonathan: a community still in shock
The upcoming trial could mark the end of a long wait for the little boy’s loved ones, but also for the residents of Orval, in Cher, who were deeply moved by the news of his disappearance. The children were brought back by bus, under gendarmerie escort and a psychological support unit had been put in place to support students and teachers in shock. A silent march brought together more than 1,000 people in the town on May 26, 2004.
“Jonathan’s mom wants to know the truth”confided Me Catherine Salsac, the lawyer of
the little boy’s mother in October 2019, reports Republican Berry. Perhaps the end of a nagging wait that has lasted for twenty long years…
Belgium
