A 24-year-old former soldier was sentenced on Friday to 23 years in prison by the Seine-et-Marne Assize Court for having killed his 20-year-old ex-girlfriend, who was strangled, beaten and then abandoned on a way in 2019. Advocate General Nathalie Scholler had requested 30 years of criminal imprisonment in the morning. The court accepted the intention to kill.
“It’s a relief to see the end of the legal process,” Caty Richard, lawyer for the victim’s parents, told AFP. “If my client’s first thought was for her daughter, in her immense kindness, she immediately thought of the accused’s mother and sympathized with her pain,” added Me Richard.
Abandoned on a path
On Sunday afternoon, January 6, 2019, Jonathan Mixtur picked up Taïna at the Parisian suburban RER station near his home in Tremblay-en-France (Seine-Saint-Denis). The young woman wanted to recover things left with this man with whom she had been in a relationship for three months at the end of 2018. Both now had new relationships.
But three hours after their reunion, local residents alerted the police: a woman lying on her back, her pants partially down and her face swollen, lying on the edge of a dead end in Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes (Seine-et -Marne), close to the Francilienne. Despite the intervention of the emergency services, Taïna dies. The autopsy concludes that he died “consecutive to severe head trauma by a blunt mechanism, causing a skull fracture and hemorrhage”.
Upgradable versions
Placed in pre-trial detention, Jonathan Mixtur, who has never been convicted before, admitted his involvement in the facts, but delivered evolving versions during his hearings. At the start of the trial on Tuesday, the accused, shaved head, of small build, listened attentively to his aunt and cousin describing him as “calm” and “discreet”. His aunt had explained that his nephew had been brought up “without a father” and had had “a difficult journey”. During his hearing, the psychiatric expert described Jonathan Mixtur as “characteristic, impulsive”.
During the investigation, the accused explained that he had sex with the victim in the back of his car, in a parking lot. As the young woman expressed regret, he lost his temper, according to his account, and strangled her, then knocked her to the ground repeatedly with his vehicle lock. After laying her in the trunk, the young man said he took the road, then put his body out of sight. Then he cleaned the traces of blood on the ground as well as his car, before making several calls to the victim to make believe that he was looking for her. His story then evolved into that of a violent argument, during which he would have acted to retaliate to the blows of the young woman.
Taïna was jovial and carefree, according to her family, which filed a civil action. Jonathan Mixtur, born in Guadeloupe, belonged to the 92nd infantry regiment in Clermont-Ferrand. He had joined the army in 2017, wishing to become a gendarme. His former squad leader called him an “average soldier” and “lazy” during his testimony.