Homicides, kidnappings… What results for the “cold cases” center in Nanterre, one year after its launch?


Clotilde Dumay
modified to

08:09, March 01, 2023

For a year, to the day, a specialized center has been set up at the Nanterre court to try to provide answers, where justice has so far failed to do so. In one year, this “cold cases” center has therefore analyzed more than 200 files, including famous cases such as the kidnapping of Estelle Mouzin or the killing of Chevaline.

The Chevaline massacre, the disappearances of the A6, the kidnapping of Estelle Mouzin… These high-profile stories are called “cold cases”, unsolved cases… For the past year, a specialized center has been set up at the Nanterre court to try to provide answers. In one year, this “cold cases” center has therefore analyzed more than 200 files, but only 77 procedures have been opened. In detail, ten preliminary investigations are led by the prosecution, and around sixty judicial information has been distributed between three investigating judges.

“Very far off the mark”

“It’s not enough, we are very far from the mark”, concedes Maître Didier Seban, in charge of 18 “cold cases” retained by the national pole. “We are very far from having looked at all the criminal files which we estimate at several thousand”, he adds. The lawyer expects more human resources, and other progress: “There is a flagrant lack of cooperation between the gendarmerie and the police. We are still destroying criminal seals in France, therefore evidence of crimes”.

Determine criminal paths

But Master Seban welcomes the progress of this new “cold cases” pole. The latter brings together “all the best expertise and new investigative techniques” according to the lawyer, thus making it possible to identify whether certain perpetrators of crime are part of a criminal course.

“Starting from their journey, gathering all the information that exists in different files and linking it to an unsolved crime, that changes everything.” The investigations in three “cold cases” linked to Michel Fourniret were also closed in early February. They could lead to the trial in November of his ex-wife, Monique Olivier.



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