Barely more than 24 hours after the murder in the middle of the street in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) of a 47-year-old cleaning woman who was on her way to work, a young man from his neighborhood was taken into police custody on Monday 17 October at 10:20 a.m. by investigators from the judicial police (PJ), announced the public prosecutor of Nantes Renaud Gaudeul.
The 21-year-old suspect, who “lives near the victim’s home”, according to the magistrate, would in fact have been “identified by relatives of the victim”, relates the regional daily Ouest-France: they would have ” very early on procured the video surveillance tapes of a company whose cameras filmed part of the scene”.
A strong emotion in the neighborhood
“The young men in the neighborhood are on edge and want to take justice into their own hands, despite our calls for calm and restraint,” testified the Bellevue Boxing Club, one of whose members is the son of the victim, on his Facebook page. “After emotion, place for anger (…). We demand that Nantes justice make this case a local priority, ”added the boxing club of this sensitive district on social networks. “We remain mobilized with the family and share their pain, but we are also determined to hold the State to account on the progress of the investigation. »
A “strong emotion” had taken hold of the neighborhood as soon as the facts were revealed on Sunday morning, the public prosecutor of Nantes had already observed the day before, which explained why the crime scene was “quite complicated to hold”.
The autopsy of the body of the victim, a 47-year-old woman who worked in a clinic in the Nantes conurbation, also revealed on Monday “the presence of twenty-three wounds, some of them fatal, in particular at the level neck,” said Renaud Gaudeul. “We do not know if the victim knew his assailant, and the motive: the three young men who gave the alert witnessed the scene from afar, and the victim collapsed at their feet when they arrived”, had– he told reporters the day before.
“Everything is done to find the author of this appalling crime”, reacted for her part the mayor (PS) of Nantes Johanna Rolland, whose city has been the scene in recent weeks of a succession of violent miscellaneous events.