Death of a 14-year-old teenager in the Pyrénées-Orientales: the stepfather in turn indicted for murder

On the night of Wednesday October 23 to Thursday October 24, the gendarmes found a lifeless body in a house located in Alénya (Pyrénées-Orientales). According to the first elements of the investigation, the death of the teenager dates back several days when he was preparing to celebrate his 15th birthday on Sunday October 27. Quickly, the victim's mother and her companion were arrested after they fled to Val d'Oise a few hours after the discovery of the body.

Thursday October 31, the victim's father-in-law was presented to the investigating judge late in the afternoon. The 42-year-old man kept silent […] during his interrogation”, the deputy public prosecutor of Perpignan, Nicolas Brignol, told AFP. The mother of the teenager named Emilio had also been indicted for murder of a 15-year-old minor and imprisoned on Monday.

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Multitude of violent blows on the victim

The father-in-law, “already convicted of violence and offenses against drug legislation”, had been “hospitalized following drug absorption before the arrival of investigators”, the prosecutor indicated on Friday October 25. For her part, the mother, “never convicted”, had been “placed in police custody in Argenteuil” before being brought back to the Pyrénées-Orientales. She was a childminder in the neighboring town of Saint-Cyprien, by the sea, also in the Pyrénées-Orientales.

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The family was “known for procedures linked to a conflictual separation of the parental couple”, the prosecution also affirmed. The case began with the revelations of a friend of the father-in-law, who came to the Argenteuil police station to report that the 42-year-old man had confided to him “that he had 'smoked' his son-in-law”. The autopsy carried out on Monday at the Montpellier University Hospital confirmed that a multitude of violent blows were inflicted on the victim's entire body.