Did the investigators miss a crime? In December 2012, in Lille, a young girl disappeared on the night of Friday 14 to Saturday 15. The body of Ingrid Marchal was found on December 31, in the Deûle, in the park of the citadel. A fortnight earlier, the body of another woman had been discovered in the same place.
The findings suggest a drowning, but many gray areas surround the investigation. Avenues remain unexplored. At the insistence of Ingrid Marchal’s mother, Dominique Blondiaux, a judicial investigation ends up being opened, in 2014. Instruction which will end in a dismissal in 2018, for lack of convincing elements.
No news of additional expertise
For Dominique Blondiaux, there is no question of giving up. From the start, she was convinced that her daughter did not fall into the waters of the Lille canal alone. And for almost ten years she has been fighting to discover the truth. She even wrote a book *, in October 2019, to tell about her legal ordeal.
However, last year, in October 2021, a new revelation came to feed the investigation. A DNA analysis of Ingrid Marchal’s clothes reveals a male genetic trace. And above all, the expertise exhumes traces of blood which, until then, did not appear in any of the previous findings and analyses. Nine years after the victim’s death.
However, for the past year, despite numerous reminders from lawyer Me Margaux Machart, nothing has progressed. A slowness that ulcerates Dominique Blondiaux. “We still have no news of the additional expertise requested a year ago,” she explains. We want to know more about this DNA trace, to have the characteristics of its owner, for example. Ditto with the traces of blood found on both the T-shirt and the jacket. »
Possible intervention of a third party
Because these new elements clearly open the door to a possible intervention by a third party in the death of the young girl. The hypothesis of a possible crime is emerging. However, the victim’s mother remains without news. “My lawyer assures me that the request for additional expertise was made by the investigating judge, but I do not believe it,” she laments.
“We could have expected a faster processing of this request for a mother tossed about by justice for so many years, adds Me Margaux Machart. This waiting is very violent. She is devastated and no longer has confidence in justice. »
Because this case, which began its legal journey in the law firm of a certain Eric Dupond-Moretti, quickly got bogged down in the hands of six investigating judges. After a first dismissal, the public prosecutor requested the reopening of an investigation, in June 2020, for “additional research into the causes of death”, with in particular the analysis of the victim’s clothes, placed under seal.
Disappearing seals that reappear
A few months later, in February 2021, the first twist in this new investigation: the seals were destroyed. Two destruction orders established in January 2020 attest to this. Consternation. Dominique Blondiaux’s lawyer, Me Machart, then initiated, three months later, in May, litigation against the State for “defective functioning of the public service of justice”.
The procedure bore fruit: a month later, the seals miraculously reappeared. Luckily, the destruction order was not carried out. The expertise of the clothes is finally ordered. The results land in early October in the judge’s office. They will take a month and a half more to reach Dominique Blondiaux and his lawyer.
“When I received the results, I lost my daughter a second time, sobbed the mother. Those bloodstains… She was murdered. “Ten years after the death of Ingrid Marchal, it is an angry mother who still hopes to know, one day, what really happened.
* Ingrid, the mystery of the Deûlepublished in October 2019, by Les Lumières de Lille.