A 77-year-old woman was found beheaded in her house in the seaside resort of Agde (Hérault), the Béziers prosecutor’s office announced Thursday, October 14, specifying that the terrorist trail was not privileged at this stage. Franceinfo summarizes what we know about this macabre discovery.
The victim’s son raised the alarm
The victim’s son, living in the Paris region, was worried Wednesday evening because his mother was not answering the phone, while he used to call him every evening around 9 p.m. According to information from franceinfo, he looked at the video surveillance set up inside his mother’s home and saw a shadow on the ground. He then alerted the emergency services.
First, the firefighters arrived on the scene and discovered the closed exterior gate, while the front door of the house was not locked. They entered the dark accommodation, lit the place and noted the presence of a body on the ground, the head of which was decapitated and placed on a table next to it. The firefighters called the police, who joined them.
The police found traces of a struggle in the apartment, according to a source close to the investigation at franceinfo. Bloody duct tape and latex gloves were found outside the house, according to France Televisions.
The victim was a retired schoolteacher
According to franceinfo information, the 77-year-old victim had been living alone since the death of her husband two years ago. A retired schoolteacher, she was the mother of two children, according to the prosecutor’s office Béziers.
According to neighbors, interviewed by France Blue, the victim was “jovial, comely, discreet”. She participated in particular in the feast of the neighbors. Local residents met by a team of France 3 Occitanie say they haven’t seen or heard anything in particular in the past 24 hours.
The victim was unknown to the judicial authorities. The Agde police station has also not identified any complaint from him in recent years.
An autopsy of the body was performed
The body of the victim was autopsied Thursday afternoon at the forensic institute in Montpellier. CCTV footage should also be analyzed in order to understand the facts and try to identify the perpetrator (s) and their motivations.
An investigation is opened for “murder”
The Agde police were withdrawn from the case and the investigation was entrusted to the territorial management of the judicial police of Montpellier. “Significant resources are being implemented by the Montpellier DTPJ to try to identify and challenge the perpetrator (s)”, assured the public prosecutor of Béziers, Raphaël Balland, in a press release.
The national anti-terrorism prosecution was informed of these facts, but “has not claimed its jurisdiction so far, in the absence of elements which could justify it in the state of the investigations”.
In addition, the public prosecutor of Béziers decided to open an investigation for “violation of professional secrecy and concealment of this offense” after the dissemination of information in the media on this case.