The trial of Hubert Caouissin and Lydie Troadec begins Tuesday, June 22 before the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court. Him for the murder of four members of his in-laws, in Orvault, in February 2017. She for concealment of corpses and modification of the inventory of a crime. A man from the judicial police recounts “his” Troadec affair.
During the night of February 16 to 17, 2017, the four members of a family are murdered in Orvault, in Loire-Atlantique : Father Pascal Troadec, 49 years old; the mother Brigitte, 49 years old; Sébastien, their 21 year old son, and Charlotte, their 18 year old daughter. Hubert Caouissin, a former brother-in-law, is the main suspect and will be tried from Tuesday, June 22, 2021. A man from the judicial police recounts how the first days of the investigation went in Finistère, where Hubert lived Caouissin.
“It all started for us on the Friday following the discovery of the crime scene in the house of the Troadec family in Orvault (Loire-Atlantique): Pascal, Brigitte, Charlotte and Sébastien Troadec were killed at home.
It is the hierarchy of the judicial police, in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), which contacts us so that we can arrest Hubert Caouissin in his house or that of his mother, located in Plouguerneau, in North Finistère. He is heard for the first time in police custody: it is above all to record his DNA.
“He carries us around”
Then we start excavations in the Pont-de-Buis mudflat. He’s supposed to tell us where he buried the skulls and a computer of the Troadec family. We are focusing our research on the banks of the Douffine (a tributary of the Aulne downstream from Châteaulin, at the limits of Saint-Ségal and Pont-de-Buis). Suddenly, the first day, we completely miss the body parts while they are in the brambles, a few hundred meters from us.
We are only looking on the ground. He carries us around. But it is by dint of research that we end up looking up, the second day: we discover viscera above the brambles four meters high. Then, we find them everywhere: he threw them on the fly, with a bucket. The place is wild, extensive, enormous: it has scattered the four bodies over some thirty hectares.
“He says goodbye to his dog, not to his kid”
His wife, Lydie, then seems completely withdrawn. And what about the kid, who had sacred grades at school: his father took him out of school for a trifle. It seems to me that it was a dispute with another parent of a student… One of the things that really struck me when Hubert Caouissin was arrested was that he threw himself on his dog to give him a hug, when he hasn’t even kissed his son.
“Gold made us fantasize”
Gold has made a lot of people fantasize about it. But we did not find any no trace. From the start, Hubert Caouissin’s version has been the same: he would have defended himself in the fight with Pascal Troadec. In the end, it’s a simple matter. What is amazing is the act itself, the quadruple murder that created a lot of excitement. Because even if he says he defended himself against Pascal Troadec, he still went on to kill the children. The rest is pretty basic.
From day one, when called upon to find his DNA, one of my colleagues is convinced that Hubert Caouissin is the culprit. An intimate cop conviction. For me, the investigation is over as soon as his DNA is confused with that of the glass of water left in the kitchen sink in Orvault: at that time, he is already dead, criminally speaking. Business of this magnitude, I’m not going to lie, I haven’t had any other in my career. And I’ve been working in PJ for over twenty years. “
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