According to “ The Parisian », as of May 16, 2022, 107 unresolved criminal cases have been analyzed by this new cold case unit. Seven of them have already given rise to openings of judicial information by the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office, entrusted to the investigating judges. This new national court is made up of three investigating judges, a public prosecutor, three court clerks and two specialized lawyers.
Thanks to advances in science, new DNA recognition techniques and the tenacity of investigators, magistrates and families of victims, some cold cases have been resolved years later. This is the case for the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin, whose DNA spoke seventeen years later to accuse the serial killer Michel Fourniret, or for the case of “Grêlé”, one of the last killers in French series to have been unmasked. More recently, a man was arrested and indicted 36 years after the disappearance of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti in Isère.
Business in the region
Among the files revived by this new national judicial center, emblematic cases including three linked to Michel Fourniret, but also cases less publicized and unknown to the general public. In the Southwest, several dozen cases will be relaunched. In Charente-Maritime, at least three cold cases are entrusted to the new jurisdiction of Nanterre.
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