The outcome is, by the very admission of the investigators, quite unexpected. Four and a half years after the death of Tessa Raimbault, mowed down by a vehicle that did not stop in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, near Nantes, a man confessed on Thursday. His arrest was made possible by the testimony of a friend of the suspect who had been taken into his confidence and who, until then, had remained silent. But, on June 12, this friend watched the program “Appeal for witnesses” on M6, which took a long look at the Tessa affair. The case, for lack of a lead, was about to be dismissed.
Moved by the testimony of Tessa’s mother on the television set, the confidant decided to call the gendarmerie. “It is clear that this program was a trigger in the file. She undeniably contributed to the significant progress of the investigation. The person says that it was after this program that she chose to speak, ”says Renaud Gaudeul, public prosecutor of Nantes.
“We are satisfied, the mission is fulfilled, reacts Jean-Marie Goix, the show producer. This is the objective of Call for Witnesses: to try to advance cases and obtain results. We worked a lot on the Tessa case. We were very touched by this story and the emotion of the parents. For them, it was the operation of the last chance. “If the decisive testimony was addressed directly to the gendarmerie, 45 calls and 85 emails were received by the standard of the emission after the televised passage. “When we looked at the content of the calls that reached us, we realized that there were people who had information. I was therefore hopeful of succeeding. During the live, there was attention on set that I had rarely seen. It motivated, I think, the viewers to call. »
Decisive on the Lucas Tronche case?
Launched on June 7, 2021, the program presented by Julien Courbet specializes in the search for witnesses in cases involving missing persons, unsolved homicides and runaways. A unique concept in France, since Lost Sight by Jacques Pradel, while it is common in many foreign countries. “We are not a program of miscellaneous facts, advances Jean-Marie Goix. We are a show to help people when everything has been tried by the police or the courts. At the center of this program, there are the families to whom we listen a lot, we highlight their story. We also carry out investigative work thanks to about fifteen journalists who study each case. On the first broadcast, a prosecutor said on the air that he considered it to be in the public interest. Jacques Dallest, the former prosecutor specialized in cold cases, a regular speaker, said the same. »
Four episodes have been broadcast since June 2021. For what results before the Tessa affair? “The first broadcast had made it possible to find the remains of Lucas Tronche, this kid wanted for six years and who was found a few days after the broadcast”, claims Jean-Marie Goix. Bones had indeed been discovered on June 24, 2021 on a rock wall, bones authenticated a few days later as being those of Lucas Tronche. “It was not the M6 broadcast that allowed us to make the discovery, contrary to what it claims, contradicts a source familiar with the matter at 20 minutes. We had planned series of excavations long before Call for Witnesses because we had thought that it could also be an accident and that Lucas Tronche could have fallen into dangerous areas around his home. »
The two following emissions “allowed progress but which did not give rise to evolutions, at least not yet”, considers Jean-Marie Goix. As for the June 12 broadcast, “there were new developments for two of the five cases we handled, I am quite confident that we will get results in the coming days,” adds the producer.
Up to 2.5 million viewers
Audiences for Call for Witnesses average around 2 million viewers per episode, peaking at 2.5 million viewers during the highly publicized first episode. “Tessa’s family had made several calls to local witnesses but, inevitably, when you address 2 million people at once, you increase the chances of success”, justifies Jean-Marie Goix. The serious calls received, more than 350 concerning the Lucas Tronche case, are systematically noted and forwarded to the authorities. “We also receive a lot of calls from clairvoyants that we don’t respond to,” says the producer.
On social networks, viewers criticize the program, however, judging it a little too sensational, too tearful, too harsh with the investigators, in order to make the audience. “Yes there is a sensational aspect, we are not going to say the opposite either”, estimates the public prosecutor of Nantes, who had himself moved on the set of M6 on January 31, 2022 in order to evoke another case [la disparition mystérieuse de Léa Petitgas].
“There is on Twitter, like a little each time, criticism of this program but, frankly, very little, answers Jean-Marie Goix. We are here to help families. If we manage to tell Tessa’s mother “you will be able to mourn” and “thanks to us the murderer of your daughter has been found”, we have fulfilled our mission. The show is worthy. Jacques Dallest would not come on a sensationalist show. Prosecutor Gaudeul, when he came to our set, he did not hold his nose. We pay attention to that, we don’t want to sink into pathos. »