The remains of a 43-year-old Belgian, part of a multinational active in biopharma, inanimate in the living room of his house in Apples (commune of the Hauts de Morges). Upstairs, in the conjugal bed, that of his 50-year-old wife and that of their only 13-year-old son. Three days after the corpses were discovered last June, “24heures.ch” revealed that the three bodies had not been injured. Neither by bullets nor by stabbing. Death by strangulation had also been ruled out. The first prosecutor of La Côte, Jean-Marie Ruede, also told us that the forties had left a farewell letter, in which he said that substance that “life was no longer possible for him”, and that the man didn’t like his new job. The thesis of the murder of the child validated by his mother was therefore not privileged. The additional autopsies received this week show that she is not in any case the author. And that the boy died of asphyxiation, using a trash bag found in the bedroom.
“We only found papillary traces of the father outside the bag,” said prosecutor Ruede. And to reveal that drug substances “linked to psychic treatment” have been detected in the blood of each member of the decimated family, including “a concentration higher than the therapeutic values” for the wife. But that it is the suffocation that is behind the death of the child.
Just like that of the fifties. Without it being established that it was her husband who acted. “This is the big unknown,” said the magistrate. “In any case, there was no compression, unlike the son, where we see that we tightened to suffocate him.”
The infanticide father was found in the living room, trash bag on his head, but “only partially taped”. “He was probably surprised by the speed at which the drugs took effect,” analyzes the first prosecutor.
The representative of the prosecution said that the forties – on sick leave – had to consult an occupational health specialist “to determine if he was able to resume his activity”. And that in his farewell letter, the Belgian meant not only that “the idea of having to go back to work was unbearable”. But also that his wife was “suffering too” (although her breast cancer diagnosed a year earlier was in remission), and “that he had decided to help her make it happen.”
The investigation did not, however, establish whether the fatal plan decided “by mutual agreement” with the 50-year-old. Only certainty: his death occurred first, on the day of Thursday, June 13. “There was a cadaverous alteration, unlike the other two bodies,” slips Jean-Marie Ruede. “For the father, we know from the checks carried out on his electronic devices that his last sign of life was given around 9 p.m.”
Created: 06.02.2020, 12h20
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