When he arrived at the Justice Department, Eric Dupond-Moretti had every intention of taking out of the cupboards the numerous files of unresolved cases which were sleeping under the dust of the investigating chambers. Two years ago now, the former tenor of the bar created the National Center for Serial or Unsolved Crimes (PCSNE). His only task: to keep criminals who thought they were out of trouble from sleeping. And because awakening the memories of possible witnesses is essential in this type of investigation, the PCSNE is now relying on video.
The “knife rapist”, first “in search of clues”
While it has barely celebrated its two candles, the PCSNE already has on its record the conviction of Monique Olivier, companion of Michel Fourniret, for the murders of Marie-Angèle Domèce and Joanna Parrish, as well as for the kidnapping followed by death of Estelle Mouzin. The cold cases unit is also seized of 105 unresolved cases, including that of “ rapist with knife », to which Pascal Prache, the public prosecutor of Nanterre, returned this Tuesday.
December 2011: Landes and Gironde police investigate two cases of rape, each committed by a man armed with a knife. Thanks to DNA, the connection is made between these two attacks, then quickly with a third case dating from nine years earlier, in Melun.
Despite the victims’ testimonies, the DNA, the precise description of the suspect and the distribution of his sketch, the investigation is not moving forward. To this day, the rapist remains untraceable. And if a new testimony could be enough to relaunch the investigations, this one does not come. Hence the idea of using calls for witnesses “made in the form of video capsules”, the Ministry of Justice explains.
“You have the opportunity to restart the investigation! »
This format, called “searching for clues”, published on the website of the Ministry of the Interior, retraces the circumstances of the facts for each case. The videos are accompanied by a chronology, a precise location of the facts and elements of information such as an identikit, a photo of the murder weapon, etc.
“Thanks to your testimony, you have the opportunity to relaunch the investigation! », It is written under the first video “in search of clues”, which therefore concerns the rapist with the knife. A link allows anyone who has had their memory refreshed by the short film to send an email directly to the Central Office for the Repression of Violence against Persons.