Valentin, 15, indicted for the murder of his parents

2023-12-04 21:29:32
A barn and a house where two bodies were found, following a fire that occurred on the night of November 26 to 27 in Châteauvilain, in the south-east of France, on December 3, 2023. TOM MASSON / AFP

Valentin, the 15-year-old teenager arrested on Saturday, December 2, following the discovery of two bodies in a burned house in Châteauvilain in Isère, was “indicted for assassinations” after confessing, announced Monday, December 4, the Grenoble prosecutor’s office.

“As he had done in front of the gendarmes, [Valentin] once again admitted the facts before the judge [d’instruction], including the premeditation of his action. He has just been placed in pre-trial detention by the judge of freedoms and detention”specified the public prosecutor Eric Vaillant in a press release.

At the heart of suspicion since the discovery of the bodies (presumably his parents, according to the prosecution), the teenager was incarcerated in a juvenile section of a detention center. He was also indicted for the destruction by fire of the family home located in the small village of Châteauvilain, between Grenoble and Lyon.

Arrested in Montpellier

The investigating judge will also “order a psychiatric assessment and a psychological assessment to better understand the personality of the accused and assess his criminal responsibility”specifies the prosecutor.

Born in 2008 and the youngest son of a family of four described as “normal, no fuss” and very well integrated into his village, Valentin was arrested on Saturday in Montpellier and placed in police custody as part of the investigation for “assassination” opened by the Grenoble public prosecutor’s office. Brought back to Isère on Saturday, he immediately “confessed to the police to be the author of the murder of his parents”according to the prosecution.

Valentin had vanished after the fire which ravaged his family’s renovated farm in Châteauvilain, a village of nearly 800 inhabitants, during the night from Sunday to Monday.

In the rubble, two bodies “almost completely charred” had been found, according to investigators. They wore “gunshot wounds to the skull” and to the thorax for one of the two.

Expertise was launched for their formal identification and a judicial investigation into assassinations and destruction by fire was opened on Friday.

The World with AFP