Dunkirk: municipal councilor suspected of having killed her spouse indicted

2023-09-22 17:11:30

The death of her husband of 51 years, Patrice Charlemagne, a university professor very involved in local life, sparked a flood of tributes on social networks, and messages of condolence to his wife. Justine Jotham, a Dunkirk municipal councillor, finally confessed to having killed her partner, during her police custody which began on Wednesday. She was indicted this Friday.

The young woman, born in 1986, had alerted the police claiming to have been the victim of a burglary fatal to her husband. A doctor and lecturer in literature, the thirty-year-old is among the teacher-researchers at the University of Littoral Côte d’Opale, where the deceased, Patrice Charlemagne, 51, also taught.

Elected in 2020 on the list of the mayor of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete – now Minister of Housing -, she is also a children’s author and headed a cultural association promoting reading. She alerted the police at 4 a.m. Monday, claiming that the couple had been awakened by burglars and that she had left the scene with her 20-month-old daughter, while the man remained in the house.

Two bloody knives, a pair of gloves…

The fifty-year-old was found in a room on the first floor of the marital home in Rosendaël (North), a district on the outskirts of Dunkirk, suffering from several stab wounds. Two bloody knives, a pair of gloves, a flashlight and a laptop were seized near the home, according to a police source.

An investigation into intentional homicide was opened on Monday, entrusted to the judicial police, the burglary trail being then “being explored”, according to the public prosecutor of Dunkirk, Charlotte Huet.

But on Wednesday, the wife was placed in police custody, “after examination of the testimonies, statements, technical and scientific findings” to “compare her version of the facts with the elements collected in the investigation”, indicated the prosecutor. She was confronted with several suspicious material elements, according to another source close to the investigation.

There was in particular “a cut on his left hand which corresponded to that of a glove found on site” and “the analysis of the smartphones which suggested tensions between the couple”, as well as “inconsistencies in the account of the facts “, this source told AFP.