After four and a half years of investigation, “thousands of procedural acts” and not the slightest solid lead, a 24-year-old man admitted the facts. The accused admitted to being directly involved in the death of Tessa Raimbault, this 17-year-old girl who was fatally mowed down by a vehicle as she was walking on the side of the road on December 20, 2018 in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles (Loire-Atlantique ), east of Nantes, announces the public prosecutor of Nantes. Placed in police custody on Tuesday following several testimonies designating him as the author of the fatal accident, the suspect, who lives in the Saint-Nazaire region, admitted to investigators that he hit Tessa, got out of his vehicle, then fled “for fear of the consequences”.
The young man, who knew the victim, was working at the time in his father’s business located “a few hundred meters” from the scene of the tragedy. He had been questioned as a simple witness by the gendarmerie but no tangible element could be held against him. At the end of 2022, he was involved in another traffic accident with consumption of alcohol while driving.
“I had very little hope. And yet…”
It was the broadcast of the program Call for Witnesses on June 12 on M6 which was “the trigger” for the unexpected outcome, explains Renaud Gaudeul, the public prosecutor. “I’ll be frank, I had little hope, given the enormous work done previously by the investigators. And yet, two days after the broadcast, a person contacted the gendarmerie to indicate that they had something to declare. She received the confidences of a friend who, under the influence of alcohol, had told her twice that he was the author of the manslaughter, ”says Renaud Gaudeul.
This person (a young man living in the area) told the gendarmes that three other people were also in the confidence. Their statements “confirmed the consistency of the first testimony”. The confidences dated from “several months” ago, specifies the prosecutor. The four confidants had therefore chosen to keep the secret despite the seriousness of the facts and the local turmoil caused by the death of Tessa. But, on the evening of the M6 broadcast, one of them “was touched by the comments made by the victim’s mother”, reports Renaud Gaudeul. According to the prosecutor, the four witnesses do not risk legal proceedings for their silence.
The main suspect was remanded in custody. He should now be indicted for manslaughter aggravated by a hit and run. He faces up to seven years in prison.