The alleged murderer of Victorine Dartois, an 18-year-old young woman found dead in a stream in Isère in 2020, promised “answers” to the victim’s family on the first day of her trial in Grenoble.
Ludovic Bertin, 29, is on trial by the Isère Assize Court for the murder preceded by an attempted rape of this student, as well as for a violent rape committed in September 2018 in the Rhône on another young person. wife, “Vicky”.
“I am happy that the judgment can finally begin so that I can provide as many answers and explanations as possible to the Dartois family even if I am aware that everything I can say will not repair what I did “, he declared from the dock.
With short hair and a light gray polo shirt, he gave his name, first name and place of birth, before calmly listening to the president present the facts, then the hearing of a first witness, without saying more at this stage.
The Dartois family, seated in the front row alongside Vicky, were very moved, wiping away a few tears throughout the hearing and hugging each other to comfort each other.
It is a “family always close-knit, united, which has been waiting for this moment”, indicated their lawyer, Me Kelly Monteiro, at the end of the hearing. “It’s a complicated day and Ludovic Bertin did not deign to give them a single look while my clients looked insistently, relentlessly,” she accused.
However, “they need to hear their daughter’s executioner say what happened, he was the last one who saw her, and it is important for the family to have this truth that “They’re really waiting,” she insisted.
Ludovic Bertin, who admitted the murder while denying having attempted to rape the young woman, “wants to be able to speak”, confirmed his lawyer, Me Arnaud Adelise. “A person who envisages detention over a very long term must necessarily go through this stage,” he explained, referring to a “milestone for the continuation of this detention”.
– School failure –
Victorine Dartois, a BTS communications student, disappeared on September 26, 2020 while walking back to her family home in Villefontaine, about thirty kilometers southeast of Lyon, after an afternoon of shopping with friends.
Her body was found in a creek less than 48 hours later, her jeans abandoned nearby. The autopsy established that she had been strangled and drowned.
Victorine’s mother and her lawyer, Me Kelly Monteiro, arrive at the Grenoble courthouse on November 25, 2024
JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK – AFP
Ludovic Bertin, manager of a transport company aged 25 at the time, was arrested in Villefontaine twenty days later, thanks to the report of his best friend, in whom he had confided and who had tried in vain to convince him to denounce himself.
This father of a young child had already been convicted ten times for common law offenses but without going to prison thanks to sentence modifications.
In police custody, he claimed to have encountered the victim while jogging then, after an involuntary shove and an argument, to have “panicked” and “squeezed the neck” of the student before hiding her body. But he denied any attempted rape.
The court heard on Monday a first personality witness who portrayed a young Ludovic Bertin who was failing at school and a heavy cocaine user but who had known how to be a “good dad” with his young son according to the words of his wife, who he allegedly moreover “much deceived”.
The court will hear other witnesses on Tuesday as part of the personality examination, while the accused should be heard at greater length on Wednesday morning.
The decision of the Assize Court is expected around December 6. Ludovic Bertin faces life imprisonment.
By Amélie HERENSTEIN / Grenoble (AFP) / © 2024 AFP
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