The trial of the alleged murderer opens this Tuesday, February 7 before the Rhône Assize Court. The facts date back to May 2020 when Romane, a 21-year-old young woman was stabbed to death by her neighbor annoyed by the music during a party.
After an argument started on social networks that ended in murder, here is another criminal case whose origin is to say the least bewildering. The facts took place shortly after the end of the confinement. In May 2020, Romane, a 21-year-old optics student in Lyon, organizes a party in her apartment with friends. But that night, the party will take a dramatic turn. Annoyed by the noise and the music, the neighbor in the upstairs apartment rings the doorbell to complain about the noise. The student opens the door, that’s when the man stabs her in the femoral artery before threatening the victim’s friends and fleeing.
Unfortunately, the young woman will not have the same luck as this man who survived being stabbed 35 times. Three days after the events, the student from Annecy died of her injuries in hospital. How could what was initially just a simple neighborhood dispute find such a tragic outcome? This is what the jurors of the trial which opens this Tuesday, February 7, 2023 before the Rhône Assize Court will try to understand.
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An incomprehensible gesture
Almost three years after the horror that occurred in this Lyon apartment, the pain remains intact for the victim’s family. “Until we got to the hospital, we didn’t understand what was going on, and even if we understood that Romane will never be there again, we still don’t understand… Why?“, wonders the mother of the victim with our colleagues from France 3.
“Nothing can explain the act that was committed. It’s a person who comes down for noise problems, who has never come forward before asking to lower the sound. He takes a knife, he goes down, he kills her, he turns the music down and he goes up”, says master Jean-François Jullien, the lawyer for the civil parties. A story of unexpected violence that can only arouse the incomprehension of the civil parties. For the relatives of the victim, what happened that evening is still difficult to conceive. “We have a film that we imagine in our heads, and the trial will help us to visualize the scene and perhaps help us for the rest. Because clearly, it’s complicated”, explains Sacha, the sister of the victim to our colleagues. “He really wanted to hurt.”, adds the mother of Romane. The 42-year-old man was arrested by law enforcement at his home shortly after the murder. He denies having intended to kill his victim and now faces a 30-year prison sentence.