the essential It will soon be 4 years since Delphine Jubillar disappeared. However, the mystery remains… Next year, the trial of Cédric Jubillar should open before the Tarn assizes, the journalist Frédéric Abéla returns to this “unfinished investigation”, in a book that he will sign on Saturday, in Cahors, then, in Albi.
In November 2020, Jonathan Daval was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of Alexia, his wife. This news item plunged France into a real turmoil. It is difficult to imagine, a few months later, that another investigation would also hit the headlines. On December 15, 2020, the disappearance of Delphine Jubillar from her home in Cagnac-les-Mines, captivated the crowds. It is this incredible case, full of twists and turns, where neither victim nor crime scene were found that Frédéric Abéla, journalist at La Dépêche du Midi, reopened. He wrote “Jubillar, L’enquête inachevée” which has just been published by Éditions La Dépêche. Before his signing session, this Saturday, September 7 at the Librairie Calligramme in Cahors from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Frédéric Abéla tells us.
Frédéric Abéla is a reporter at La Dépêche du Midi in Toulouse, in charge of legal affairs. DDM – FREDERIC SCHEIBER
When you follow such a criminal case, dissected by all the media, what makes you feel the need at one point to write a book about it? And especially to tell what more?
In fact, what is interesting when you are a spectator of a news story like this is that you have scattered elements to deal with. With a little distance, by putting these incriminating elements end to end and in chronological order, and in their context, you realize that it is no longer the same story.
The Jubillar case is interesting because it lasts over time, with the impression that it is endless, without a body, without a crime, without a confession, almost mysterious. It is therefore complicated for the prosecution to build a solid framework without concrete evidence. The investigators had to look elsewhere: telephone calls, witnesses, rare clues, but everything is so fragile. The aim of this book was to demonstrate how in this sensational case we manage to incriminate someone without tangible evidence.
So I focused on the investigation work for 4 to 5 months, I took up the essential part of the framework of accusation, of what could be opposed to all that, on the background of a fictionalized story of the life of Cédric and Delphine, their meeting, the lover, their setbacks… They both played a dangerous game. The people who interfere, the friends, the confidants… Finally, all of them poisoned this already particularly toxic relationship of the couple.
What made people so passionate about this new news story? What is so unique and incredible about it that more than three years after the imprisonment of the only suspect, the subject is arousing so much interest?
Already, the context of the end of 2020 is a period of Covid in France, under night lockdown, just before Christmas. There is a kind of black hole in the news that needs to be filled when this disturbing disappearance arises, involving a nurse and her husband, who is overwhelmed by everything. It ticks all the boxes. Social networks quickly go up in flames. And then, France is just coming out of the Daval affair.
How about this survey?
It is colossal, meticulous. They went so far as to make international requisitions from Google, to request American mutual aid. They are convinced that he is involved. Cédric Jubillar, turns out to be a particular man with a suspect profile, who surpasses Daval or Lelendais. But the investigators face a wall.
They thought that by not taking him into custody for the first 6 months he would make a mistake… They worked on the GPS location, went back to all the places mentioned, carried out searches, but found nothing. It feels like unfinished business.
Also read:
Jubillar case: technology at the service of an extraordinary investigation one year after Delphine’s disappearance
Reading this book, one wonders about the trial at the Assizes, expected for 2025… Will the jurors manage to form an intimate conviction?
He will be tried in Albi, where he is known and does not necessarily have a good reputation. The jurors will be steeped in this case. Faced with Cédric Jubillar, they will either reset the counters to zero, or they will be influenced by what they have seen of this case. At the assizes, the truth must be revealed, so everything will also depend on his behavior, the witnesses and the lawyers’ arguments. We know that we will have a very offensive defense. But convicting someone without a body has already been seen.
Frédéric Abéla will be signing his latest book: “Jubillar, L’enquête inachevée” published by Éditions La Dépêche du Midi, this Saturday, September 7 at the Librairie Calligramme in Cahors from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. He will be at the Fnac Albi, starting at 2:30 p.m.
