The investigation of the barbaric murder of 12 rue de l’Isle-d’Or in Cognac is now closed. Five people are sent back to the Charente Assize Court. The trial will take place from October 10 to 18, 2022, in Angoulême, we learn from reading the role of the next session.
On the bench of the accused, three people will respond to the charges of “murder preceded, accompanied or followed by another crime” (in this case acts of torture and barbarity), but also of “extortion by violence , threat or coercion”. They are Cathy Bichon, a 41-year-old Cognaçaise, David Klein, 38, and Philippe Laroche, from Pas-de-Calais, 30 years old.
Stupor and dread
The sordid facts took place in April 2019 rue de l’Isle-d’Or in Cognac.
Jonathan Guérin/South West Archives
Two alleged accomplices, a man and a woman, are also being prosecuted for “non-denunciation of a crime”. They would have helped to remove the body of the victim, who had been found two weeks after the criminal acts, partly burned, almost unrecognizable, in an isolated path in the woods of Courcerac near Matha (Charente-Maritime).
What the press had quickly called “the barbaric murder of Cognac” had been revealed by “Charente Libre” at the end of April 2019. The affair had plunged the city of brandies into amazement and dread. “This murder is one of the most cruel that the Charente has known in recent decades”, writes our colleague Ismaël Karroum.
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