The investigation into the death of Karine Esquivillon took a boost on June 29, 2023. The rifle used to kill this 54-year-old woman was found by chance in the mud, near Lake Apremont near Maché (Vendée). It was a walker in her thirties who made this fortuitous discovery, during a walk with her dog during her lunch break. “The water was very low, I was able to approach and I saw that it was indeed a weapon”, she said in the columns of West France, Thursday August 24, 2023. The victim, a mother of five children, had been missing for three months when her lifeless body was found in mid-June 2023, in a wood near Challans, in Vendée, on the indication of her husband Michel Pialle. The latter, a 52-year-old online second-hand dealer and father of his wife’s three youngest children, said in police custody having killed her “accidentally” in March 2023.
Michel Pialle would have killed his wife Karine Esquivillon while cleaning his weapon
As complete West France, the testimony of the walker at Lake Apremont allowed the intervention of the gendarmes on the spot. The murder weapon is a .22 Long Rifle with a silencer. found near picnic tables and now in the hands of experts of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie in Pontoise, in order to carry out DNA samples. According to the version of Michel Pialle, who became the sole suspect in the death of his wife Karine Esquivillon, an accidental shot fired from the weapon while the marksman was cleaning it with a view to selling it, fatally wounding the victim. . Two magazines and a silencer were found in a river not far from the family home in Vendée. According to the autopsy, the mother at home would probably have died from a bullet in the chest, but the advanced state of decomposition of the body does not allow us to provide more details on the circumstances of the death, nor to confirm or deny the version. from her husband. Charged, he was remanded in custody. He benefits from the presumption of innocence pending a court decision.