This Sunday, October 16, RMC Story is broadcasting a new issue of Bring in the accused, devoted to the Anaïs Guillaume case. In April 2013, this 21-year-old young woman disappeared while she was spending the night with her companion, Philippe Gillet, on a farm in the Ardennes. It is finally thanks to the latter’s daughter that his body will finally be found.
A case that caused a stir. On April 16, 2013, Anaïs Guillaume, a young woman of 21, spends the evening at the farm of her boyfriend, Philippe Gillet, a 40-year-old farmer, whom she met two years earlier following an internship on a farm. But the day after that evening, she no longer gives any sign of life. The investigators then do everything possible to find the young woman. Like the latter, Philippe Gillet is also untraceable.
But the case takes a disturbing turn when Anaïs Guillaume’s car is found charred April 21, 2013, in a forest in Belgium, eleven kilometers from the farm of his companion. An investigation for worrying disappearance is then opened, and the investigators are particularly interested in Philippe Gillet. However, it will take wait more than six years, on October 28, 2019, to find the body of the young Ardennes woman, on the ground of the latter.
The body of Anaïs Guillaume discovered thanks to anonymous letters
The corpse of Anaïs Guillaume has been found thanks to an intriguing lead. indeed, several anonymous letters had been sent to justice and to Philippe Gillet’s lawyer, a few weeks before the discovery of the body. In these writings, it was indicated that the body of the young woman was therefore on the ground of the boyfriend, as reported by our colleagues from France Bleu Ardennes on November 1, 2019: “An anonymous letter reached the Charleville prosecutor’s office some time ago. It wasn’t the first. Seeing nothing coming, seeing no investigation brewing, Philippe Gillet’s eldest daughter decided with a friend to search what she thought was a crime scene. Victoria Gillet found the traces of bones and warned the gendarmes”.
It is therefore thanks to the daughter of the main suspect that the body of Anaïs Guillaume was discovered. A real relief for the family of the victim. “We will finally be able to mourn Anaïs. We really wanted to find Anaïs so that we could put her in the ground and so that we could go and pray at her grave. We have been looking for Anaïs for six and a half years (…), we are relieved because we will be able to pay tribute to her with dignity and [faire en sorte] let her be next to us. And it’s sadness and anger at the same time”confided the father of Anaïs to France 3 Grand Est.
Philippe Gillet was then heard by the judges during his trial, which took place from April 6, 2021. And on April 22, 2021, the court delivered its verdict: it thus sentenced the farmer to a 30-year prison sentence, with a two-thirds security period.