What happened 36 years ago, it was the public prosecutor of Grenoble who told it, this Thursday, during a press conference at the Grenoble courthouse. Éric Vaillant described the confessions made by Yves Chatain, while in police custody, last Sunday.
In 1986, Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti, 25, mother of a four-year-old girl and a six-month-old baby, distributes free newspapers to make ends meet. On May 22, 1986, she left a packet of newspapers in the hall of the “Chatain house”. This is how, in Pontcharra, we call this large building, property of the Chatain family. They are well-known traders in the region, a house located near the station and which will be demolished in 1992.
A badly parked car and an argument
Yves Chatain, 21 at the time, says that Marie-Thérèse had left her car badly parked in front of his house. This annoyed him. An argument broke out between them. The young woman would have followed him home to ask him to apologize and that is where he would have strangled her. He then hid the body in a forest in the area. According to prosecutor Vaillant, the man would be cooperative and would have indicated the exact location. But so far the search has turned up nothing.
The Bonfanti family never gave up and even relaunched the investigation in 2020, submitting a brief to the courts which convinced the prosecution to reopen the file. For them it’s today “a relief” explains Maître Boulloud, the lawyer for the Bonfanti family, “They don’t have any hatred, they have bitterness, that’s for sure. It took 36 years for this truth to begin, I say well, it begins to be consecrated” he details.
Not hate but bitterness
If the suspect confessed, it is also thanks to the enormous work of the cold case cell of the Grenoble Research Section, recalls Éric Vaillant, the prosecutor: “The suspect had to be kept in police custody for only a few hours because he had already been in police custody 36 years ago. Gendarmes specializing in human behavior made it possible to know how to ask the right questions at the right time. etc…”
Yves Chatain was indicted for kidnapping, forcible confinement and murder. The facts of kidnapping and forcible confinement are not prescribed, on the other hand, the murder is prescribed 10 years after the last procedural act. It is therefore necessary to find the body so that the murder of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti is not prescribed and that Yves Chatain is judged at the assizes.
Other unsolved cases
Yves Chatain had left the region recently, to settle in the center of France but until then, he lived in Chartreuse where he managed a gite with his partner. In his youth, he had been convicted of twice attacking young women, he had also tried to strangle one of them.
In the Pontcharra sector, there are other unsolved cases. In 1981, the body of Liliane Chevènement was found, strangled with wire. In 1984, two Belgian hitchhikers disappeared 20 km from Pontcharra and in 1985, Marie-Ange Billoud, disappeared while hitchhiking outside Pontcharra.