The trial of the main suspect in the bloody murder of a postwoman from Ain in 2008 began on Monday before the Assizes of Ain in Bourg-en-Bresse, with the aim of removing the many gray areas that still hover over this case.
The facts date back to December 19, 2008. The body of Catherine Burgod, 41, stabbed with 28 stab wounds, was discovered in the Montreal-la-Cluse post office (Ain), where she worked as a teller. The 40-year-old mother of two was five months pregnant.
According to the prosecution, the motive for this murder without witnesses would be villainous, for a loot of around 2,600 euros.
This crime, as brutal as it is mysterious, captivates the general public and the media, in particular when the suspicions of the investigators fall on Gérald Thomassin, a former hope of French cinema living in marginality. He then lived not far from the small post office in this village of Haut-Bugey.
After observing a series of disturbing, even incriminating behaviors and remarks, the actor was indicted and imprisoned in 2013.
But four years later, the national automated genetic fingerprint file (FNAEG) reports a match between the DNA taken from a bag found near the victim’s body and that of Mamadou Diallo.
This paramedic, a high school student at the time of the events, was doing an internship in December 2008 in a company in Nurieux, 5 kilometers from Montreal-la-Cluse.
The new number one suspect admitted to having gone to the post office the morning of the murder, but he claims to have discovered the body of the forties and fled in panic after seizing a wad of notes.
Described unanimously as non-violent – his criminal record only mentions speeding – this 32-year-old man today continues to deny being the perpetrator of the crime.
His lawyer Sylvie Noachovitch points out that his client’s DNA was not found on the body of the deceased or on the safe found open.
The former paramedic appears alone, a dismissal having been pronounced in 2020 concerning the possible involvement of Gérald Thomassin and an alleged accomplice for a time indicted.
The track of the actor was lost in 2019 after an SNCF check on a train linking Rochefort to Nantes. A judicial investigation for “kidnapping and forcible confinement” was opened in October 2019, but he has since remained untraceable.
The verdict is scheduled for April 4.