Significant research has been launched to find an inmate from Argentan prison (Orne). He is suspected of having killed a 40-year-old woman and a septuagenarian after fleeing while on leave, the Angers prosecutor’s office said on Monday July 3.
The 42-year-old suspect presents a “dangerous criminological profile. (…) He must be arrested before another tragedy, “said the public prosecutor of Angers, Eric Bouillard, during a press conference. “I invite the witnesses not to intervene and to contact the police,” the magistrate said, asking residents of the area to lock their doors.
A search notice accompanied by a photo was published Monday evening by the prosecution: it presents the suspect as a man measuring 1.85 m, “of mixed race type, athletic build with curly black hair”. Anyone with items is invited to contact 0800 877 668 (or, in an emergency, 17) to report them, without trying to intervene, explains the search notice.
Convicted of attempted spousal murder
About fifty gendarmes track the fugitive north of Angers. According to Colonel Tanguy Landais, commander of the Maine-et-Loire gendarmerie group, more than four hundred properties have also been checked.
The suspect, originally from Reunion, was serving two prison sentences: a criminal sentence of twelve years for attempted murder of a spouse, and a correctional sentence of three years for aggravated property damage.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the respondent, benefiting from an exit permit to obtain administrative documents, took a train after his release from prison in Argentan and would have reached Angers on June 20.
On June 22, in the same city, a 40-year-old woman was found dead at her home in Angers by neighbors and her two children. She “carries marks on her neck” and “it will be established that she suffered strangulation with her bare hands which led to her death”, explained Mr. Bouillard. The suspect was in the same prison as the ex-companion of this woman. She had also visited him in prison in the visiting room.
He escapes a first device
On June 28, further north, in Chailland (Mayenne), “a 26-year-old woman who becomes pregnant will discover that someone has entered her home and will be the victim of an attempted theft of her vehicle and violence. extremely serious, attempted strangulation”. This victim was saved thanks to the intervention of a third party who intervened.
The man then fled and took refuge in a vast wood, escaping the device put in place by the police to arrest him, detailed the prosecutor.
On Saturday July 1, around 7 p.m., a vehicle was discovered burning in Cantenay-Epinard (Maine-et-Loire), north of Angers. “The vehicle in question belongs to a person who will be identified on Sunday morning and who lives in Chailland.” The owner, a 72-year-old man, former town mechanic and municipal councilor, was found dead at his home. “The assumption that is made today is that the owner of the car will find his attacker when he returns home,” said the magistrate. “We have a hypothesis that all these facts are linked,” he added.