The relatives of Isabelle Mesnage, killed in 1986 in the North, had to wait until June 2022 for her murderer, Jacques Rançon, to be tried: to solve unsolved criminal cases more quickly, a new type of investigation, “criminal course », has just been set up in France. At this stage, nine men, already convicted of rape or murder, are targeted by the so-called “criminal journey” investigations of the national center dedicated to “cold cases” based in Nanterre. Police and gendarmes will retrace their journeys, looking for other victims.
In an attempt to reduce this black figure of unidentified victims, the criminal course allows a magistrate to investigate not on a given fact as was the case until now, but on the entire life course of a implicated, looking for matches with unsolved cases. The investigators in charge of these nine files will start by re-reading the whole carefully, before “scratching” wherever they can, to trace the life of the respondent in “the smallest detail”, explains Lieutenant-Colonel Marie-Laure Brunel-Dupin, head of the Division of unsolved cases (Diane) of the gendarmerie, where a unit is dedicated to criminal routes.
“The legal system had not anticipated that twenty years later cases would be reworked and elucidated”, analyzes Lieutenant-Colonel Brunel-Dupin. She also pleads for a change in prescription legislation, since society “has decided not to forget anymore”. Here is a return on the nine new investigations opened:
Nordahl Lelandais, the shadow of a serial killer
The former soldier has already been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder in 2017 of little Maëlys de Araujo and to twenty years for that of Corporal Arthur Noyer. Before being the subject of a “criminal course” investigation, 40 files (concentrated in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the Lelandais region) had been targeted by the investigators. Including that of the Fort de Tamié, where two men disappeared a year apart at the exit of the same music festival. None of the 40 cases could be attributed to him.
Patrice Alègre, seven years without crime?
Patrice Alègre, 54, was sentenced in 2002 to life imprisonment with a 22-year security period for the rape of six women and the murder of five of them. A series of crimes committed between 1989 and 1997. On the other hand, the serial killer had benefited from a dismissal for five cases of murder or assassination and for a rape committed between 1987 and 1992.
The investigators responsible for re-studying his career will look at the period 1990-1997, that is to say seven years without any crime, which questions given his profile.
Patrick Trémeau, the “parking rapist”
This 59-year-old man, nicknamed the “parking rapist”, was convicted of 17 rapes or attempted rapes committed mainly in the 11th and 20th arrondissements of Paris and in the Paris region in the 1980s and 2000s. He acted mainly at night and assaulted his victims in underground parking lots. His journey is interspersed with several arrests and incarcerations.
Jacques Rançon, the “perpignan station killer”
Nicknamed the “perpignan station killer”, Jacques Rançon is one of the rare criminals to have been sentenced twice to life imprisonment. In 2018, for the rapes and murders of two women in Perpignan in 1997 and 1998. Then in 2022, on appeal, for the rape and murder of Isabelle Mesnage in 1986.
After a dismissal in 1992, this investigation was relaunched in 2017 when Corinne Herrmann, the lawyer for the Mesnage family, made the link between Jacques Rançon and the death of the young woman. This former driver himself mentioned a victim whose feet he would have “cut off”, which does not correspond to any of the cases for which he was convicted.
Pascal Jardin and the “disappeared from the A6”
This man in his sixties was sentenced in 2018 to life for the rape and murder in 1996 of one of the A6 missing persons, Christelle Blétry, killed at the age of 20 with 123 stab wounds in the Saône. -et-Loire. The case had triggered a mobilization around several similar files, also known as the “disappeared of Saône-et-Loire”. Already sentenced in 2004 for attempted sexual assault, it is not excluded that he could have committed other acts, in particular in the Landes, where he had rebuilt his life before his arrest.
Belgian repeat offender Willy Van Coppernolle
This Belgian repeat offender, now 79 years old, has been convicted many times in Belgium, in particular for sexual assault. In France, he was sentenced in 1995 to life with a security sentence of 22 years for the murder and rape of Abdel, 11, in Gard in March 1993, as well as for the rapes of two teenagers in the same region a few days later.
Pascal Lafolie, confused by his DNA twenty-seven years later
This 56-year-old man was confused in 2021 by his DNA for a murder committed twenty-seven years earlier: that of high school student Nadège Desnoix, 17, killed in 1994 in Château-Thierry (Aisne).
Arrested in Ille-et-Vilaine where he lived, he admitted the murder and was indicted. He had already been convicted in 1997 and 2002 for acts of rape and sexual assault.