The investigation promised to be long due to the analyzes requested, and the almost total destruction of this house located at the entrance to the town of Astaffort, boulevard des Rondes, and ravaged by flames on the night of the 18th to October 19 last year.
The file was concluded at the end of December, with the experts’ final conclusions. The first made it possible to formally identify, by means of DNA analyses, the body found in the rubble of the house, five days after the fire. An incompressible deadline to begin research, due to the significant risk of the structure collapsing.
As predicted, the victim is indeed Geneviève Tourné, 80 years old, the only inhabitant of the house. The genetic profile of the octogenarian also appears on the cigarette butts found in the ashtray placed on his bedside table, and responsible, according to the elements of the investigation, for the origin of the fire, which started at night in the room of the octogenarian.
Violence of the disaster
The disappearance of Geneviève Tourné, well known in the town of Astaffort, had upset the inhabitants. “He is an atypical person, with a strong character,” described Mayor Paul Bonnet. The octogenarian had joined Lot-et-Garonne upon retirement, after having worked as a dietician in the Paris region. In this one-story house with a surface area of 200 m2the occupant had amassed a lot of papers and personal effects.
To imagine the violence of the fire, 46 firefighters were mobilized at the height of the event, supported in particular by a drone with thermal vision and three hoses were deployed to prevent the fire from spreading to two terraced houses. The clearing operations had been long and delicate, the municipality having issued, for its part, an order of imminent danger, so that no one ventured near the house.
