The trial is coming “electric”warns the defendant’s lawyer. Jean-Marc Reiser, who confessed to the murder of Sophie Le Tan, in September 2018 in Schiltigheim, is tried at the Assizes of Bas-Rhin, Monday June 27 to Tuesday July 5, for “murder as a criminal recidivism”. Here are the main things to know about this court case.
A young student who disappears during an apartment visit
On September 7, 2018, Sophie Le Tan, from Cernay (Haut-Rhin), is 20 years old. This young economics and management student works nine hours a week as a night receptionist in a Strasbourg hotel. On the morning of her birthday, she leaves her job at 7:15 a.m. and goes to Schiltigheim, commune of the northern suburbs of Strasbourg, for her very first apartment visit.
This youngest of three siblings, who lives in a Crous accommodation, looking for a rental for the coming academic year. The young woman came across an ad from an individual on the Leboncoin site. The publication, without a photo, only includes a short apartment description and a vague address. After her visit, Sophie was to take the train to Mulhouse to celebrate her birthday at the restaurant, with her family. She will never have the chance.
“Sophie Le Tan was a young girl adored by everyone. She was a serious, courageous student who had the misfortune to fall into a trap.”
Gérard Welzer, lawyer for the Le Tan familyat franceinfo
The young woman no longer gives any sign of life. His phone, which had been “bounding” since 10:10 a.m. in the area of the apartment visited, stopped broadcasting at 2:49 p.m. The day after, the father by Sophie Le Tan reports her daughter missing to the police. A judicial investigation for “kidnapping” and “kidnapping” is opened five days later.
Mobilized to try to find Sophie, the Le Tan family posts a call for testimonies on Facebook, which turns out to be decisive for the rest of the investigation. Two students respond by reporting that they wanted to visit accommodation in the same neighborhood as Sophie. But the rental company had stopped responding to the young women after they had gone to the address indicated. Unlike Sophie, the potential tenants had come accompanied.
A suspect with a heavy criminal record quickly identified
Investigators find that three very similar real estate ads were created between July 28 and August 23, 2018. The exploitation of the demarcation data of the telephone lines used by the “renter” succeeds: eight days after the disappearance of Sophie, the individual who published the advertisements was identified and arrested in the evening, while driving. His name is Jean-Marc Reiser. The 58-year-old student of Byzantine archeology at the University of Strasbourg, is indicted for “kidnapping”, “kidnapping” and “assassination”, then placed in pre-trial detention.
This son of Alsatian forester has a considerable legal past. In 1997, he was arrested during a routine customs check. An arsenal of handguns, a shotgun, balaclavas, narcotics, as well as pornographic photos are discovered in his car. In the images, the women appear naked and seem inanimate. L’one of them is a former mistress of Jean-Marc Reiser who had filed a complaint for rape in 1996 and then retracted. By examining the past movements of the suspect, the investigators also make the link with the rape of a German hitchhiker in the Landes, in August 1995. Jean-Marc Reiser was on vacation in the region at the same time. This victim, aged 22, then formally identifies him.
These discoveries lead to the condemnation of Jean-Marc Reisner in 2001, in Besançon, to fifteen years of criminal imprisonment for two rapes, one of which was aggravated, under the threat of a weapon. A conviction confirmed on appeal in 2003. Before his conviction at the assizes, he had tried, during the summer of 2000, to flee from the courthouse, during a hearing of the Court of Appeal which examined his request of release. This attempt to escape earned him another sentence, to eight months.
The name of Jean-Marc Reiser still appears in another case, tried in 2001. Françoise Hohmann, a 23-year-old home appliance representative, disappeared in 1987 in Strasbourg. Jean-Marc Reiser was his last known client. In this disappearance, which has points in common with that of Sophie Le Tan, the man is however acquitted with the benefit of the doubt. The procedure was however reopened in February 2020 for “sequestration” and “concealment of a corpse”, in the light of new elements.
“The date of disappearance of Françoise, the place, the physical characteristics are all elements which present similarities with the disappearance of Sophie.”
Sylvie Correia, lawyer for the niece of Françoise Hohmannat franceinfo
The investigations carried out in the Hohmann affair also make it possible to establish Jean-Marc Reiser’s hostility towards women. “We discovered at that time that he was an extremely violent man with certain companions”remembers Valérie Gletty, former lawyer for the family of Françoise Hohmann.
On May 3, 2022, Jean-Marc Reiser was again sentenced to six months in prison for witness tampering, after having sent a letter to his former concubine in which he invited her to “specify or modify” his previous testimonies in the Sophie Le Tan case.
Body found a year after disappearance
A Facebook page “Mobilization to find Sophie Le Tan” was launched in September 2018 to unite goodwill. Quickly, it turns into an association: Icared is founded in 2019. For a year, citizen beats are organized every weekend in the hope of finding the body of the young woman. “Participating in research, being active, helped me enormously. Staying at home while waiting was too difficult”, confides Laurent, cousin of Sophie.
On October 23, 2019, more than a year after Sophie’s disappearance, a family in search of mushrooms discovers its incomplete skeleton in the forest of Rosheim (Bas-Rhin). “A few days before, we had organized a hunt two kilometers from the place where she was found. We weren’t really far, but the forest is so huge”, regrets Frédéric Vinçon, vice-president of the association. In March 2019, an expertise revealed the presence of Sophie Le Tan’s DNA on the handle of a saw found during the search of Jean-Marc Reiser’s cellar. Two months later, new analyzes reveal the presence of the student’s blood in the 50-year-old’s apartment, as well as on his shoes.
Cornered, Jean-Marc Reiser returns to his first statements. He had initially ensured that he had never seen Sophie Le Tan. Then he said before the investigating judge, during his first hearing on October 5, 2018, that he had met the student, injured in the hand, at the faculty of Strasbourg, then offered to treat her at her home. But he then denied any involvement in his disappearance. A version that has become difficult to maintain according to his lawyers, while the elements which incriminate him accumulate. “We told him that we were not necessarily going to be able to follow him on an assize trial” if he stayed on this version, remembers his adviser, Pierre Giuriato. VSt was finally on January 19, 2021, more than a year after the discovery of the body of Sophie Le Tan, that Jean-Marc Reiser, heard at his request by the examining magistrate, recognized his involvement in the death of the young woman. .
“Jean-Marc Reiser never stopped lying or varying in his statements. At the start, he said he had never seen Sophie and then, thanks to the work of the police, he deigned to admit having killed her.”
Gérard Welzer, lawyer for the Le Tan familyat franceinfo
On February 16, 2021, a reconstruction is organized in Schiltigheim, in the apartment where the crime took place, in the presence of Jean-Marc Reiser. The procedure lasts more than eight hours.
Premeditation in question at trial
Despite the confessions of Jean-Marc Reiser, questions will still have to be answered during the trial which opens before the assizes of Bas-Rhin. Why did Jean-Marc Reiser kill Sophie Le Tan? Was this act premeditated? Has the young woman of Vietnamese origin been targeted ? “The file shows that Jean-Marc Reiser was viewing porn sites with young Asian girls,” ensures the family lawyer, who adds : “Sophie fell into a trap. Sir Reiser chose her [le jour du rendez-vous pour la visite d’appartement] watching her from her home through binoculars.”
The man, who will appear for “murder in criminal recidivism” after the rejection of an appeal in cassation, always categorically refutes any premeditation. “He will remain inflexible on this” during the trial, warns his counsel.
“The prosecution alleges that Sophie’s death was the result of a ploy to set a trap in a cold, calculated way. We contest this scenario. We, what they say, is that it is about intentional violence which resulted in death without the intention of giving it.”
Pierre Giuriato, lawyer for Jean-Marc Reiserat franceinfo
“The challenge of the trial is above all to judge him for the heinous acts he has committed”, sweeps away Gérard Welzer, who wishes that the Le Tan family can begin their work of mourning. “It’s a moment we’ve been waiting for a long time. The wound will reopen, it’s going to be very painful,” apprehend Laurent, cousin of the victim. “But there must be a condemnation, so that there is justice”, he hammers. Jean-Marc Reiser faces life imprisonment.