It is still in the hands of investigators. The police custody of the husband of Karine Esquivillon, a mother who disappeared in Vendée for two and a half months, was extended Thursday morning by 24 hours, we learned from the La Roche-sur-Yon prosecutor’s office.
Arrested Wednesday around 8:30 a.m. at his home in Maché (Vendée) and placed in police custody in La Roche-sur-Yon, Michel Pialle is heard in the investigation opened on April 17 for “kidnapping and forcible confinement”, which was widened on Tuesday to acts of murder.
His custody was extended Thursday morning by 24 hours, until Friday morning at the latest, said the public prosecutor of La Roche-sur-Yon Emmanuelle Lepissier. Wednesday morning, a search of the couple’s home, a house located in a hamlet near Maché (Vendée), was carried out for more than eight hours in the presence of the husband.
A “voluntary departure”?
Karine Esquivillon, 54 years old and mother of five children, disappeared on March 27, leaving no other known trace than a mobile phone discovered two weeks later in a ditch by the mayor of the town. A call for witnesses was launched on May 9 to try to find her.
At the end of May, her husband said he was convinced that his wife had “voluntarily” left their home in Maché, which some children and the sister of the fifty-year-old doubt. According to confidences of Michel Pialle to the media, the couple was no longer together but lived under the same roof in their house.
Interviewed Wednesday by BFMTV, Adelaide Esquivillon, Karine’s sister recalled having had “doubts” about the sometimes divergent statements of Michel Pialle. She explained that if her sister had left voluntarily, she “would have said goodbye to her children, would have warned them”.