This case has long been THE Toulouse cold case! Today the hour of trial has come. 36 years after the disappearance of Martine Escadeillas, her alleged murderer, 58-year-old Joël Bourgeon, appears before the Assize Court of Haute-Garonne in Toulouse.
No body, no DNA but confessions in custody
Arrested three years ago, Joël Bourgeon admitted to having hit the young woman. Then he retracted. He will eventually await his trial in prison. This father of two grown-up daughters will have lived 33 years before being overtaken by the Martine Escadeillas affair. On December 8, 1986, this 24 year old secretary drops off her companion at a bus stop in Ramonville, south of Toulouse where she lived. Then nothing. She doesn’t show up for work. Bloodstains are discovered in the stairwell of his building.
After two unproductive investigations, it is a letter from a friend of Martine Escadeillas who pushes justice to open a third judicial inquiry. She has suspicions about Joël Bourgeon, a former friend of Martine who left to live in Isère. He was arrested at his workplace in January 2019 in Villette-d’Anthon in Nord-Isère, east of Lyon. A rejected and upset lover, he would have told the investigators hitting the young woman and then not remembering of the suite before changing to retract. He is indicted for murder and placed in detention in Seysses (Haute-Garonne), before being transferred to Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain).
Last January, when Joël Bourgeon’s request for release was rejected, his lawyer Eric Mouton insisted on the unusual aspect of this criminal file: “without body or DNA”. The trial, which begins this Friday, July 1, is expected to last four days, until next Wednesday, July 6. The accused faces 30 years in prison.