Who killed Marie-Belen Pisano at the Timone metro station?

The CCTV images that immortalized the sad scene on this Sunday evening in March 2019 are blurry and dark. But technological progress does not care about the lack of visibility to enlighten the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence, on this third day of the trial. At the helm, a criminologist presents a 3D model of the murder scene which cost the life of the young Marie-Bélèn Pisano.

On the reconstructed images, we can clearly see a man dressed in a long dark parka and a hood that hides part of his face. The man is very close to the young anthropology student, on the escalator of the Timone metro station in Marseille. He deals a first blow to the victim, who tries to defend himself. She collapses to the ground and tries to flee, followed by her attacker. The report of the medical examiner presented this Wednesday to the Assize Court is formal: Marie-Bélèn Pisano died of a stab wound which fatally injured her in the pulmonary artery. She was 21 years old.

But who is the man in the parka who killed the young student? Behind the box, Yanis* looks at the images, imperceptible. The young man, now 20, has been claiming his innocence since the start of his presidency. He just concedes that he rarely visits this neighborhood, where his best friend lives in a hostel. The investigators, for their part, are convinced that Yanis, then 17 years old, is the author of the facts. A DNA trace of the teenager was found on a parka belonging to his uncle, similar to the one worn by the murderer. Another was identified on the victim’s sock. On the big screen, in a studious silence, the criminologist passes the scene in slow motion. Technological prowess makes it possible to view it from a new angle. An angle that shows contact between the suspect’s hand and the victim’s lower leg as the victim struggles.

A witness notes “an expression that is similar”

At the bar, four witnesses to the macabre scene follow one another. At each of their hearings, the president repeats the same scene. The young Yanis gets up, and the witnesses are invited to stare at him. Then this eternal question: “Does the man who is seated in the box correspond to the one you saw on the day of the facts? A young midwife, present by chance at the scene of the crime with her companion firefighter who provided first aid to the victim, struggled to answer, cleared her throat. The president insists. “It’s hard, but for me, there is an expression that is similar. »

A few hours earlier, Me Beryl Brown, lawyer for the civil party, asked the president to broadcast an image taken from the video surveillance on the giant screen. The video was captured near the scene of the crime, a few minutes before. Zooming in on the dark, blurry image, we can make out the eyes and nose of a youthful face, in profile, under the hood of the dark parka. The chance makes that the suspect offers the court the same profile, whereas he observes this image on the screen of the court of assizes. In the public, the glances go from the image to the face. ” It’s him ! exclaim in a breath the relatives of Marie-Bélèn Pisano in the public. “I can’t say it’s you, but there’s a slight resemblance all the same”, launches Me Beryl Brown to the attention of Yanis. “Bring me back the parka and have me do a reenactment, the young man gets carried away. Already, my uncle was two meters tall. If I put it on, the jacket is a dress. It happens to me in sneakers! »

Asked by the president about the body of evidence that leads to him, the young man, already known for facts related to narcotics, defends himself tooth and nail. “I will tell you the truth. Basically, I’m innocent. Like, I wouldn’t have done something like that. I’m not of a nature like that. I’ve done some bullshit before. But murders are not my thing. I’m not that bad of a person. The young man could at least be sentenced to twenty years in prison if the excuse of minority is maintained. Otherwise, he faces life imprisonment.

*Name has been changed.

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