François Vergniaud, a 49-year-old repeat offender, appears before the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court starting this Friday, October 25. In August 2020, he admitted to having killed Céleste, a 15-year-old girl, in Nantes.
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On August 20, 2020, firefighters discovered the body of Céleste, a 15-year-old girl, while they intervened to extinguish a fire which broke out in the attic of an unoccupied house under construction, rue Adolphe Moitié, in the city center of Nantes.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the young girl, who lived approximately 200 meters away, had left her home around 4 p.m. to pick up a package. Her mother became worried around 5 p.m., not seeing her return. The body was discovered less than an hour later.
The autopsy will show that the teenager died as a result of asphyxiation, probably by strangulation, and that she was wearing “stigma of sexual violence”Yvon Ollivier, deputy prosecutor, during a press conference a few days later.
The suspect, identified following a neighborhood investigation, was quickly arrested and placed in police custody.
This man is called François Vergniaud, a Poitevin who raped or attempted to rape 13 women in Poitou-Charentes in the early 2000s.
Between 2001 and 2003, young women were victims of sexual assault and rape in Charente-Maritime and Vienne. They all tell the same story. A man approaches them to ask them to help him carry a box or piece of furniture.
Investigators have also nicknamed this attacker “the cardboard man”. In Poitiers or Saintes, wherever he has been active, investigators are tracking him. He remained untraceable until this morning in August 2003 in Poitiers.
A police officer is about to go on duty when he spots a man walking the sidewalk with a large package. He calls out to her. The man immediately admits, his name is François Vergniaud.
In December 2005, the Vienna Assize Court sentenced him to 18 years of criminal imprisonment. He will serve 12 years in prison.
The trial of François Vergniaud for the murder of Céleste will begin this Friday, October 25, before the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court.
Written with France 3 Aquitaine
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