An 83-year-old man is suspected of having shot dead the social worker who accompanied him to Virey-sous-Bar (Aube) – ALLILI MOURAD / SIPA
Around 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the gendarmes were called “following the discovery of a lifeless body of a young woman on the steps of a residential house” in Virey-sous-Bar, said the prosecutor of Troyes, Sophie Macquart-Moulin, in a press release. The victim is a 36-year-old social worker who visited the occupant of the house on a monthly basis: an 83-year-old man living alone in the premises “following the placement in nursing home for several months by his wife”, specifies the prosecutor.
This social follow-up was set up after “the isolation of this elderly man, affected by the deterioration of his wife’s state of health”. The young social worker had an appointment with the octogenarian that day. The Troyes prosecutor’s office said Thursday that the 83-year-old man was suspected of having shot his assistant before committing suicide.
The man had hunting weapons
The victim “appeared at first sight to have succumbed to the shooting of a firearm”, the sector was then “immediately secured”, in particular by the PSIG, and the GIGN of Versailles was mobilized “for fear of the reactions of the occupying premises, presumably in possession of hunting weapons ”.
Arrived around 7.45 p.m., the GIGN soldiers tried to “make contact by telephone” then “by voice” with the suspect who did not answer. The absence of any trace of movement in the house then made it possible “to invest the premises and to discover him in the hallway of the entrance to his house, deceased, following a long gun fire”, the prosecution continued.
The suspect was “not unfavorably known to justice”
“The preferred hypothesis at this time is that of a suicide immediately following the homicide of the social worker”, added this source, specifying that the autopsies of the two bodies will be carried out on Thursday by the Forensic Institute. de Reims, to confirm the causes of the two deaths.
The investigation was entrusted in joint referral to the Research Section of Reims and the Research Brigade of Bar-sur-Aube. According to the prosecution, the suspect was “not unfavorably known to justice”.