For three days, a woman will appear from 2:30 p.m. this Monday before the Charente-Maritime Assize Court for the murder of her lover, Laurent Soucaze, who was stabbed to death on June 18, 2018 in Saint-Pierre-d ‘Oleron. He was director of the Hyper Intermarché de Dolus. Nathalie was also an employee of the store.
Two days before his death, Laurent Soucaze returns from a week’s vacation spent in Spain with Nathalie, his mistress for almost two years. A stay in the sun supposed to reunite their couple regularly shaken by stormy episodes and scenes of jealousy. It must be said that the store manager has the reputation of a womanizer who multiplies the conquests. The motive for a crime of passion? Perhaps, but the real issue of the trial is not there.
A kitchen knife
The lifeless body of Laurent, 44, was discovered inside the garage of his house in Saint-Pierre d’Oléron. He has a wound 18 cm deep in the chest. A kitchen knife was found nearby. Lying next to the corpse, Nathalie is injured in the abdomen. It turns out that she had inflicted the stab wound herself.
The defendant first pleaded accidental death following an argument. A version is quickly swept away by the gendarmes of the research section of Poitiers and the gendarmerie brigade of Saint-Pierre d’Oléron in charge of the investigation. Indicted for “murder of a partner”, Nathalie, 45 at the time of the events, was placed in pre-trial detention in Gradignan prison.
Text messages never received
The divorce of Laurent Soucaze was to be recorded the day after the day of his death, according to the will of his wife. Not his. As proof, the many fiery text messages sent to his future ex-wife. Problem, she never received it. She had turned the page and blocked his phone number. It is only during the investigation that she will become aware of these text messages.
Was the mistress of the forty-year-old taken by a fit of jealousy at the idea of losing him? Three years and tomorrow after the murder, the relatives of Laurent Soucaze, in particular his son Hugo, are finally waiting for answers. The trial is expected to last three days. The defendant faces life imprisonment.