The French police are convinced that there has been a murder. The problem is that not only is there no body, but also no one has been reported missing.
In a mystery that seems straight out of a novel by the famous inspector Maigret, the Normandy state prosecutor, Rémi Coutin, appealed to the public to help find out who is the person who might have died.
“In my 14 years as a magistrate, I have never seen a situation like this. We don’t have a body,” Coutin said.
“And we don’t have the identity of the person who we believe was murdered,” he added.
What the police do have is a suspect.
He is a Polish man from 60 years who has lived in France for many years, working as a carpenter, and who is currently in custody.
Police believe that on March 9, the suspect, who was driving a black Audi under the influence of alcohol, struck a female cyclist on a road near the city of Grand Bourgtheroulde, 976 km northwest of Paris.
Thinking that he had killed her, he went to her house to get a shovel, but when he returned, he discovered that she was still alive, so the police believe that he “finished off” her with a blow and then buried her body in a garbage dump.
There is very little material evidence that any of this actually occurred. There is no body, no confession to the police, no bicycle . Above all, there are no reports of a missing cyclist.
The reason why the police are sure that a murder is that the man initially told people close to him that he had done it.
The police released a notice looking for witnesses, in which they affirm that the victim was a woman between 46 Y 60 years old and that the black Audi that hit her is registered in Poland.On May -more than two months later – the ex-girlfriend of the suspect went to the Dieppe police station and said that her ex had called her on the phone while drunk on March 9 to tell her that he had killed a woman in an accident.
That was his initial version.
Then, the suspect called him back to tell him that he was fine: the woman she was alive and had gone to her house.
Concerned, she went to see the suspect the next day. He was not at home, but his car had damage to the windshield and a large red stain.
Then, the 14 March, she confronted the suspect in person, and this time he told her the full story, including the murder with the shovel and the burial. She told him that the cyclist was like a homeless person or a homeless person
Three other witnesses heard him give different versions of the accident. A friend who went to her house later that day found him frantically cleaning her damaged car.
He told her that the cyclist had survived,. However, the friend took photographs of the car, which are now a key part of the police evidence.
Another incriminating piece of information is that the suspect declared that the Audi, which was found burned in mid-April, it had been stolen. But later he admitted to the police that he himself had set fire to it.
Arrested in June, the suspect initially said the accident story was a “bad joke”, made up to get his ex-girlfriend to take pity on him. He stated that he himself had caused the damage to the car and that he had stained it using chicken blood.
According to the police, he later admitted that there had indeed been an accident, but that the victim was unharmed, before to repeat the “bad joke” explanation once again.
To take the case further, the police urgently need to find out who the victim could have been.
“Many people disappear without the police knowing about it,” said prosecutor Rémi Coutin.
Among the possibilities is that the woman was a tourist, a foreigner with a second home, or perhaps someone on a long-distance bike ride. She could also have been living camping or in isolation, separated from her family.
The call to witnesses issued by the Rouen police describes her as being from 40 Y 60 years old, with a backpack and on a bicycle possibly equipped with panniers.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate them so you don’t miss our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!