The 25-year-old man suspected of having killed his 23-year-old companion on Saturday in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), with around thirty stab wounds, was indicted for murder of a spouse and placed in pre-trial detention, a announced the prosecutor.
The defendant is suspected of having acted “in recidivism”, after a first conviction for “complicity in murder” in 2018 in Guyana. He was convicted on two other occasions, notably for violence.
Called to the victim’s home around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, the police discovered the young woman “bleeding out”. She died in hospital around 9 a.m., recalled Reims prosecutor Matthieu Bourrette during a press conference.
30 stab wounds
According to the autopsy, the mother of two children, born from a previous union, died of a “massive blood hemorrhage”, suffering from 30 stab wounds, “probably” with “two separate weapons”. “Two knives with bent blades” were found.
On the evening of the events, in the presence of the two children, aged three and four, and two nephews of the victim, the couple had a violent argument. In police custody, the defendant claimed to have discovered a week before the facts, “that he suffered from a sexually transmitted disease”, which he attributed to his partner, which would have caused their last dispute.
According to his statements, the victim would have first grabbed a knife. “Enraged” in his own words, he would have disarmed her before delivering “three or four blows”. According to him, he stopped knocking after seeing one of the children in the half-open door, then briefly fled before going to the police, alerted by the victim’s family.
Already a complaint filed in October
Originally from Guyana, the victim “knew for a long time” the respondent, Keyshawn Harlequin. “They met in mainland France in the spring of 2022, and he moved in with her in July,” said Matthieu Bourrette. She had filed a complaint in October 2022 for domestic violence that had occurred the day before, evoking another episode dated July.
The respondent had then left his home, but the young woman had not gone to an appointment with the justice at the end of October and had withdrawn her complaint at the beginning of December, indicating that she had “resumed life together”. Born in Guyana, and holder of a residence permit valid until the end of 2024, the defendant faces life imprisonment.