A woman and her two children, aged 18 months and 13, were found dead Thursday in their pavilion in Dreux, Eure-et-Loir. The ex-spouse of the mother, father of the children, was arrested on Saturday morning.
It was the manager of a telephone store who gave the alert. The former companion of the woman found dead with her two children Thursday morning in their pavilion in Dreux (Eure-et-Loir) was arrested in Plaisir (Yvelines) and placed in police custody on Saturday May 27, franceinfo learned from a source close to the investigation. According to prosecutor Frédéric Chevallier, interviewed on franceinfo, the arrest took place calmly. The 46-year-old man, main suspect of the triple murder, was taken into custody to be heard by the judicial police of Orleans, as part of the investigation opened for aggravated intentional homicides.
Woman and two children stabbed to death
It was the firefighters who made the gruesome discovery. A 36-year-old woman and her two children, an 18-month-old baby and a 13-year-old girl, were found dead on the morning of May 25 in a pavilion in Dreux. According to the prosecutor of the Republic of Chartres, Frédéric Chevallier, it was a friend of the woman who gave the alert. She had to accompany him to a garage to “recover his vehiclebut “did not answer when he rang at the latter’s home (…) nor to his telephone calls”, detailed a press release from the prosecution published the evening of the tragedy.
The bodies of the victims showed wounds and the first findings led “to favor the use of a knife by the perpetrator”, according to the prosecutor. The man arrested is suspected of having carried “about forty shots” knife on his ex-spouse, and a dozen on each child. The autopsies of the three bodies are planned “early week in Rouen”.
The suspect already convicted of domestic violence
The ex-spouse of the woman found dead is also the father of the two children killed. A few hours before the discovery of the bodies, the man had posted two messages on Facebook accusing the victim of having cheated on him and hitting his daughter, accompanied by photos showing bruises on a forearm, reports France 3. “I’m going to end my life”, he wrote. In a video, the forties, hard of hearing, speaks in sign language. “She has already cheated on me with other men, several times, and that, my daughter knew it. (…). My wife told her that if she told me everything, she would hit her.”
Asked by AFP, neighbors explain that the couple had been separated for about two years. “He was going crazy, he did not accept the separation”, explains one of them. Another recounts having regularly heard “screams, arguments”. “We said to ourselves: it’s them again”, he said.
Quickly identified as the main suspect, the ex-spouse is immediately sought by the police. The man is already known to justice. He was sentenced, on September 3, 2021, by the Chartres Criminal Court, to one year’s imprisonment, including four months suspended probation for two years, for aggravated violence against his ex-partner and his daughter. The man was detained between July and December 2021. According to the prosecutor, the latter then had “properly evolved, respecting, for the most part, the bans on appearance and contact, the obligations and prohibitions decided by the trial court”.
In early 2023, the children’s judge had asked the sentence enforcement judge to lift the ban on contact with his daughter to set up mediated visits (in the presence of social workers). “In this context, a meeting took place in March 2023, without any particular difficulty”, according to the prosecutor.
His ex-wife had filed two complaints in May
However, the situation seems to have changed again recently. The mother of the family filed a first complaint on May 9, after “the discovery on May 2 by herself of a GPS tracker under her car”according to the prosecution. “She designated her ex-husband as the author of this fact.” Summoned on May 22, she did not show up. Her ex-husband was to be heard on June 2.
The day before the discovery of the bodies, the young woman again filed a complaint for theft of jewelry and identity documents, committed between August 19, 2022 and May 24, 2023, “raising his suspicions again on his ex-spouse who would have kept the duplicate keys of their common home which he was forbidden to approach”.
The suspect spotted in a phone shop
The suspect was arrested on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. by the police in Plaisir (Yvelines). He was recognized by an employee of a telephone store. “She had already seen this gentleman two days ago, she had the presence of mind to call the police”greeted the prosecutor on franceinfo, Saturday afternoon.
Placed in police custody, the suspect must be heard by the judicial police of Orleans for acts of aggravated voluntary homicides. Police custody, scheduled to last 24 hours, can be extended by 24 hours, reminded the prosecutor on franceinfo.