Sophie Le Tan: “A black, dark, chilling shadow”, this implacable indictment against Jean-Marc Reiser

“Sophie’s death is not an unfortunate accident, she fell into a trap.” It is with these words that this Monday, July 4, 2022, the Advocate General requested life imprisonment against Jean-Marc Reiser, tried since June 27 for the murder of Sophie Le Tan. Although the accused asserts that he did not premeditate his “a fit of rage“against the 20-year-old young woman, who came to visit her apartment listed on Leboncoin on September 7, 2018, Laurent Guy left no room for doubt in his indictment. For him, the 61-year-old man had planned his gesture .

“Sophie’s arrival in this apartment owes nothing to chance“, declared the magistrate facing the Assize Court of Bas-Rhin, in Strasbourg, rejecting the scenario of a chance meeting that Reiser has been pleading for more than a year now. “Sophie Le Tan has crossed paths with a black shadow, dark chilling (…) He has a project, and he will stick to it. (…) We are far from the one who freaks out for nothing”, a- he added.

Jean-Marc Reiser denies premeditation to the end

Called to the bar on Friday July 1 to present his version of the facts, Jean-Marc Reiser claimed to have met Sophie Le Tan “by chance” downstairs from his house. He had then forgotten that she had to come and visit his apartment. “I was still a little in the vapors of alcohol, I felt a good feeling between her and me…”, declared the accused, explaining that he had ensured the visit despite everything before attempting a rapprochement with the young woman by trying to “to kiss“. Feeling threatened, Sophie Le Tan would then have pushed him away and called him “pork“, which would have made him lose his temper.”It pissed me off. I lost the pedals“, he admitted, explaining that he “slapped” to the young woman before beating her to death. Noting her death, Jean-Marc Reiser would then have taken “the wrong decision to make the body disappear“, according to her, and would have dismembered her to fit her body into a suitcase.

After deliberation on Tuesday, July 5, the jury aligned itself with the requisitions of the Advocate General and sentenced Jean-Marc Reiser to life imprisonment with a 22-year security sentence.