Missing for almost a year, former actor Gérald Thomassin, distinguished from a César in 1991 for his role in Le Petit Criminel and long suspected of having killed a postal worker in Ain in 2008, benefited from a dismissal. The investigating chamber of the Lyon Court of Appeal confirmed, at the end of June, the order made by the judges in charge of the case, we learned Friday from concordant sources, confirming an information of the regional daily Le Progrès . The public prosecutor's office, " a priori ", does not envisage an appeal in cassation. In this twelve-year-old case, another suspect was also referred to the assize court.
Read also: Gérald Thomassin's disappearance: the prosecution opens an investigation for forcible confinement
On December 19, 2008 at the Montreal-la-Cluse postal agency (Ain), Catherine Burgod-Arduini, 41, mother of two and pregnant, was found in a pool of blood, struck with 28 knives. His attacker had fled with the contents of the trunk. The gendarmes quickly suspected marginal drug addicts installed across the street, including former actor Gérald Thomassin (45 years old today), fallen into marginality and addictions. Arrested in 2009, he was released for lack of evidence. In 2013, he was indicted and imprisoned for murder on the basis of a telephone conversation with his brother, where he seemed to confess to the facts - which he later denied, referring to remarks made under the influence of the alcohol and drugs.
In 2016, his dismissal before the assizes was rescinded by the Court of Appeal and two Lyon investigating judges took over the case. A year later, a thirty-something, Anthony V., was indicted for complicity.
Read also: Accused of murder, the caesarized actor Gérald Thomassin missing for two weeks
Rebound in 2018, with the arrest of a new suspect, Mamadou Diallo, confused by DNA traces. Charged in turn, the latter, 31 years old today and still detained, claims his innocence: he entered the postal agency to make a purchase, discovered the body and left by stealing money, according to his lawyer, Sylvie Noachovitch.
At the end of the investigation, the Lyon public prosecutor's office requested to send Thomassin and Diallo before the assize, but the judges, at the end of January 2020, dismissed the first (as well as for his alleged accomplice Anthony V.) , now the accusation against the second. This order was challenged on appeal by his defense, as well as by the prosecution. But the investigating chamber confirmed it.
To read also: César with pages news item: Gérald Thomassin, the cursed child of French cinema
Released on an electronic bracelet in 2015, then readmitted for cutting his shackle, Thomassin was released in 2016 and settled in Rochefort (Charente-Maritime). At the end of August 2019, he had missed a judicial summons in Lyon. The trace of the former actor was lost at the time after an SNCF check on a train connecting Rochefort to Nantes. A friend of the ex-actor, fallen into addiction for a long time, had reported his disappearance three days later and he has not been found since.
