For two days, since this Thursday, June 11, 2020, a 60-year-old woman is on trial in Caen, for having concealed the presence of the body of her younger sister in Saint-Martin-des-Besaces (Calvados). An extraordinary judicial record. So much so that it retains much of the mystery. With a central question: how could a 37-year-old woman disappear in 1998 without anyone worrying about it for more than ten years?
We had to wait until February 2010 to start having answers. Patrick (assumed name), who has lived in Canada for four years as a couple with the sister of the missing, writes to the Caen prosecution. In this letter, he suspects his partner of having killed his sister.
Start a huge investigation. The third party, which will be known as Mélanie, is being heard by Canadian authorities. It is subject to the lie detector. The veracity of his words is undermined. Extradited to France, she was indicted for intentional homicide on her sister. Just like Patrick, who had also shared the life of the disappeared at the end of the 1980s. Mélanie was involved in their relationship in Avignon then on their arrival in Calvados in 1991.
The Saint-Martin-des-Besaces house was first searched by the investigators in 2010. Without result. In June 2014, other investigations on the property made it possible to find the remains of a skeleton, at the foot of the dovecote, under almost 50 cm of clay and in lime. Experts concluded that it was ” very probably “ of the missing. The circumstances of his death could not be determined.
” I was scared “
Patrick and Mélanie pass the buck. And are indicted, him for murder, she for concealing a corpse. Before the courts order the prescription of intentional homicide. This is not the case with the related offense of concealment, continuous.
Mélanie, 1.65 m, slender, brunette with short hair, is therefore the only one to be tried before the court. “As early as 1998, Patrick told me that he had killed my sister », She says at the helm. Why did you never say anything? ” I was scared “, answers the one who was totally ” under the influence “ by Patrick, described as “Very violent, manipulative”. “False”, replied the interested party.
Melanie was she so fists and hands tied that she “Would have repressed the elements (on the death of his sister) of which she could have known? “, asked the expert psychiatrist. The Advocate General is wreaking havoc on Mélanie’s motivations. In the early 2000s, she imitated her sister’s signature to settle the estate of their deceased mother and sell the house in Saint-Martin-des-Besaces, which belonged to her sister. With the complicity of Patrick. “I never took advantage of this money”, assures the accused. She faces two years in prison and a € 30,000 fine.
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