The human skull found on February 19 by a hunter is indeed that of Anne-Charlotte Poncin. The investigating chamber of the Lyon Court of Appeal decided on Thursday to keep a former soldier in detention for the alleged murder of his companion. The victim’s skull was found on February 19 by a hunter, in a wood near Ambérieux-en-Bugey (Ain), as revealed on Wednesday by the weekly Marianne.
Anne-Charlotte Poncin, a young woman of 30, had disappeared seven years earlier, on January 5, 2016, from her home in Ambérieux. A new interrogation of his companion, already suspected, was carried out on March 13 by an investigating judge from Bourg-en-Bresse, before his placement in pre-trial detention.
The suspect denies
The defense challenged this measure, now endorsed by the Lyon Court of Appeal. “The new element absolutely does not show that she died violently,” pleaded Me Grégoire de Petiville, lawyer for the suspect who claims to be innocent. “Her behavior is more than suspicious, she has made contradictory and disturbing statements. She knew perfectly well the places where the skull was discovered. It is absolutely necessary to give ourselves the means to find the rest of the body, ”pleaded Me Bernard Boulloud for the parents of the victim who are civil parties.
“We don’t want to add to it, we just want the truth to be made. We want to find our daughter and find out what happened, ”said the father as he left the old Lyon courthouse alongside his wife, saying that she had been taken “by boat”.
Statements deemed ambiguous
In 2016, the former soldier reported the disappearance of his companion, saying that she had gone “to look for work in the plain of Ain”. She had participated in the search and lived with the parents of the missing young girl for three months. The rapid resale of a car, the return of the telephone of the disappeared two days later and, above all, ambiguous remarks on a telephone tapping, had drawn the suspicions of the investigators.
Placed in police custody in January 2022, she finally claimed that her partner had committed suicide by medication and that she had transported the body “in a panic”, then had thrown it “into the water, from a bridge”, without indicating the exact location. She had been indicted for “spouse murder”, imprisoned three months before being placed under judicial supervision, for lack of decisive evidence and in the absence of the body. The suspect had contested the conditions of her interrogation, her lawyer deploring “pressure”.