It is 4:41 a.m. on February 14, 2016, when Raynald Barguet’s phone rings. But the 23-year-old is sleeping and it’s his girlfriend, Mendy, who answers. At the other end of the line, a man she thinks she knows asks her to wake up his spouse. He must urgently get out of the caravan she has been sharing with him for a few months, in Marseillan, in the Maldormir district, in Hérault. Raynald opens the door. A detonation tears through the night, quickly followed by a cry. A bullet punctured the rib cage of the victim who tries to return to take shelter. But she is mowed down by a second shot. “They shot me,” screams the victim. Firefighters and doctors from Smur quickly go to this Traveler camp. Despite their intervention, Raynald succumbed to his injuries at 5:45 a.m.
The gendarmes in charge of the investigations very quickly favored the track of a family revenge. Raynald Barguet had a little boy in June 2015 with Coralie, a young woman from whom he had since separated. Their relationship was rocky to say the least. The investigation quickly established that Raynald Barguet had fallen into the trap set for him by his ex-mother-in-law, Valérie Andrieu, now 54, her son Jocelyn, 30, and the new companion of Coralie, Alexandre Petremann, 29 years old. Seven years after the events, all three are on trial, as of Monday, before the Hérault Assize Court for murder and complicity in murder.
A carefully prepared crime
Alexandre Petremann, a firefighter from Paris, admitted to being the author of the shots. He had been planning his crime for at least three months. He saw no other way, he confided in police custody, to protect his partner and his in-laws whom Raynald was harassing about the custody of his child. He had identified beforehand where the victim’s caravan was located. Then he cut the fence around the camp to get in easily. He had then procured weapons and practiced shooting into the vines while aiming at pans. The recoil, the noise, the precision… Nothing was left to chance. He had equipped his .22 long rifle with a precision scope and a silencer.
That night, he approached the camp along the railway line and positioned himself about sixty meters from the victim’s caravan. He threw stones and a molotov cocktail, hoping to see Raynald come out of his house. But it is a failure. So he called him using a phone that belonged to Valérie Andrieu. He bumped into Mendy and posed as a relative to whom the victim owed money. When he saw the door open, he opened fire twice. Not knowing if Raynald was dead, he emptied his magazine onto the trailer. Then he picked up the casings and fled. Alexandre Petremann then surrendered.
“The instigator of the criminal act”
Jocelyn, his partner’s brother, admitted washing his clothes, helping him bury his weapons and providing him with an alibi. Jocelyn also admitted, in police custody and before the investigating judge, to have been aware of the criminal project of Alexandre Petremann. The firefighter, he confided, wanted to “get rid of Raynald Barguet definitively”. Since then, Jocelyn has reconsidered his statements: he thought that Alexandre Petremann was simply planning to fight with the victim.
His brother-in-law, however, indicated that he was aware of his plan in every detail. Justice has also wondered: could he have participated in this assassination? The shooter had taken two balaclavas, two walkie-talkies, and three weapons. The reconstruction of the crime “did not allow the participation of a second person to be excluded”, writes the investigating judge in his indictment order.
The magistrate also believes that Valérie Andrieu is “the instigator of the criminal act”, although she disputes her participation in the facts. “His desire to remove his daughter’s former companion transpires, incontestably, from the testimonies collected”, further specifies the examining magistrate. Throughout the investigation, she never ceased to hammer that Coralie had been the victim of violence from her former companion, met at the age of 15. However, no complaint against him has been filed. This woman, described by those close to her as a “lying” or even “Machiavellian” person, would have manipulated her son Jocelyn and her daughter’s companion to take revenge on Raynald Barguet. She participated, in particular by buying the balaclavas and the walkie-talkies. His DNA was also found on the murder weapon.
“The page has to turn”
The relatives of the victim “are impatient for the trial to begin”, indicates to 20 minutes their lawyer, Me Pascal Ammoura. Raynald Barguet’s father, grandmother and sister will be present at the hearing “to find out what happened, so that people can explain themselves and that justice can be done”. “The page must be turned and justice will participate in it by rendering the verdict that we are impatiently awaiting”.
The defendants face 30 years in prison. The trial ends Friday, April 21.