“I thought it was an explosion in my head, I thought it was Chernobyl”

After the arrest of the alleged “cinder block killer” on Tuesday on a train in Toulon and the broadcast of video surveillance images, a Dijon woman recognized her attacker. On July 25, in Dijon, she received a violent stone blow to the head which could have cost her her life. Élise Neugnot looks back on this day where everything could have changed.

When her father calls her to tell her to watch the news which mentions the arrest of the “cinder block killer”, the news rings obvious to Élise Neugnot: she realizes that she escaped “something serious” this summer. A simple screenshot of video surveillance images taken in Rotterdam allows her to recognize this attacker, whose hood she had the reflex to tear off a few moments after her attack, on July 25, 2024 in Dijon.

A striking testimony that the survivor tells us, in front of the camera, less than 4 months after an encounter that could have been fatal to her.

When Élise Neugnot looks back on this day of July 25, 2024, she first speaks of joy and almost “euphoria“. That of finally being on vacation. A day which, however, turns into a nightmare a few moments later. It is 2 p.m. in the Dijon-Valmy district and this health professional has barely left her medical analysis laboratory.

But as she walks to her car, suddenly “it starts to ring a lot in my head“, she confides to us. She does not fully feel the shock of the big stone as an individual, “appeared out of nowhere“, has just hit him on the back of the head. A reverberation in his skull which has the effect of a “grosse explosion“, comparable for her to that of “Tchernobyl “.

She, who thought she was alone in the street, noticed, completely stunned, this large stone on the ground. She turns around and makes the connection with this hooded individual whom she sees walking away. By a miracle, she did not lose consciousness. Élise Neugnot starts screaming. She even goes after this individual and manages to tear off his hood. In a split second, she visualizes her attacker “psychopath face” before being violently hit in the face. She screams again and again, even when the man insists on hitting her on the ground. Cries which alert her colleagues who come to help her.

A chase begins to try to catch Elise's attacker. The police were quickly notified but the man managed to flee. Élise Neugnot is taken by her colleagues to the emergency room of the Dijon Burgundy Private Hospital, fortunately located a stone's throw from the scene of the attack. The victim is taken immediately to be treated and stitched up. His head is bleeding profusely.

Images that loop on continuous news channels. And finally this face that she manages to capture on her phone. All this comes as a shock to him. She goes through all the states and understands that she, the Dijonnaise, is part of a “big deal” on a national scale, even “internationale“. Indeed, this 32-year-old man of Cameroonian origin, Élise Neugnot formally recognizes him. He has just been arrested (Tuesday, November 12 in the evening, editor’s note) at Toulon station after the attack on a woman on a train.

► ALSO READ: The man arrested in Toulon is suspected of the attack on a homeless man in Rotterdam

Investigators quickly follow the trail of this man, prosecuted for 1 murder and 4 attempted homicides, including that of Élise Neugnot in Dijon. The individual allegedly killed a homeless man with a concrete block in Lyon, and tried to kill another – still in a coma at the time of writing this article – at the beginning of November in Rotterdam (Netherlands). Other victims, luckier, were able to escape at lower cost in Strasbourg, Évry or even Dijon…

Élise Neugnot therefore seems to have escaped the worst on July 25, 2024 in the Dijon Valmy district. But every day, she can see the precise location of her attack from the window of her medical analysis laboratory. His scar on the back of his head is by chance”behind her“, but she will keep this scarred wound on her lower lip for a long time. This little lump which will always send her back to this meeting, one of those which freezes the blood and which makes one realize how life sometimes only hangs by a thread, or by a bad meeting.