Following the death of a college principal in Lisieux (Calvados) on Friday, two people were arrested, announced the public prosecutor of Caen, Joël Garrigue, Wednesday August 16, during a press conference. The arrested are a 19-year-old, a former college student who did not know the main death, and a 17-year-old minor, according to the Caen prosecutor’s office, which took up the investigation.
According to Mr. Garrigue, the two suspects admitted “entering the college by breaking down a door”, but they reportedly left before the principal arrived. The two young people claim to have heard a noise when they entered the establishment, “they describe these noises in a rather summary way, like blows”, reports the prosecutor.
According to the exploitation of their phones, videos and messages make it possible to confirm that the two young “were present near the college before 6 a.m., but also to note that, (…) in the minutes that followed, they were outside the school and at a distance from it”, confirmed the public prosecutor. “At 6 a.m., they were out”he added. “I cannot exclude the presence of a third person in the establishment, but I have no additional information on this for the moment”, he continued.
“Fairly minimal skin lesions”
The two young will be investigated” For “trespassing on the premises of an educational establishment [et] offense of degradation in assembly of goods of public utility”, also announced Mr. Garrigue. They face seven years in prison. The investigating judge was also seized against X for the death of Stéphane Vitel, the principal of the college, in order to determine the circumstances. Toxicological analyzes are in progress.
The autopsy conducted on Monday revealed “to note fairly minimal skin lesions on the whole of Mr. Vitel’s body as well as a head trauma on the left side”, explains the prosecutor. However, “the medical examiners believe that these lesions are not the cause of death”, he added. Pulmonary edema was also observed in Mr. Vitel, which would be linked to an old cardiovascular pathology, it is specified.
Early Friday morning, while he was on the vacation route with his family, the director of the Pierre-Simon-de-Laplace college, Stéphane Vitel, was informed of the triggering of the anti-intrusion alarm in his establishment. He then drove there, leaving his wife and children in the car. According to information from the prosecutor, at 6.34 a.m., Mr. Vitel cut off the alarm. Not seeing him return, his daughter broke into the college and found the 48-year-old man unresponsive, Ms.me Vitel at BFM-TV.
The death of this college principal aroused a wave of emotion in Lisieux and within the educational community. Dozens of bouquets of flowers were placed in front of the college gates, which he had taken over at the start of the 2022 school year.