Parents never took their eyes off the children.
Marcouville gave in to a certain psychosis in the spring of 2017 after four attempts to kidnap little girls in this district of Pontoise, until the suspect was arrested.
Three and a half years later, the man accused of being at the origin of the facts appears from this Monday morning before the Assize Court of Val-d'Oise.
His trial is scheduled to last four days.
Olivier N. is now 31 years old.
"They were worried mothers, at the time," remembers Florence today, a resident of Marcouville, a district that has not forgotten.
“They were organized so that the children were not left alone.
Even the young people of the neighborhood were careful.
"
He attacks his victims in building halls
Leila also remains sensitive to the evocation of the facts.
“This affair has marked people here a lot,” says the teenager.
I have a friend who was kidnapped.
He had taken her to a garage and told her if she screamed he was going to kill her.
He left her alone for a moment, she screamed.
People have heard it.
She was lucky ”.
“I knew her after the fact but she didn't talk about it, she breathes.
She recently started confiding in us and that helped her, I think.
"
An 8-year-old schoolgirl leaves the family apartment to go to class, walks down the stairs of her apartment building when the man, who was crouching in the shadows, jumps up.
He places his hand over her mouth, forcibly takes her into the basement, threatens to kill her if she screams… Four times, on March 1 and 24, 2017, then on April 22 and 27, in similar circumstances , the man will attack his victims in several building halls of the city.
On two occasions, he even exhibits a knife to frighten the girls and achieve his ends.
But each time, the little victims who were between 8 and 12 years of age managed to avoid the worst by screaming, alerting passers-by or provoking the intervention of a person putting the attacker to flight.
A genetic sample from around forty men
"I no longer let go of my daughter with a sole ..." confided at the time a mother of a pupil from a district crisscrossed by investigators from the PJ of Cergy, helped by the police from Val-d'Oise, mobilized strength to find the aggressor.
About forty men who may correspond to the description established had been the subject of a genetic sample.
Some had been taken into police custody.
One of them will be indicted and, ultimately, exonerated.
Marcouville regained his serenity a few months later, when the suspect was indicted in December.
The investigators had been able to identify her following a sexual assault committed on a little girl in Epinay-sur-Seine (Seine-Saint-Denis), on August 18.
The man had offered to help a little girl who was on her way to the bakery but had lost her money.
He had taken her to a garage where he had touched her.
Spotted on CCTV after sexual assault in Epinay
Olivier N., whose parents live in Cergy, was arrested at their home on August 30 after being spotted on Epinay's video surveillance.
Sentenced to four years in prison in October, he also made his entry into the national DNA file where he did not appear.
It was then that the DNA taken during the events of Pontoise was able to "match" and allow a name to be put on the alleged kidnapper of Marcouville.
Questioned by the PJ, he disputed his involvement in the Marcouville facts.
“I remember that there was a lot of police control in Marcouville.
There was a lot of concern in the neighborhood.
Moms were getting a little paranoid, which was normal, ”recalls Nadia, a young woman from the neighborhood.
An anxiety that has also faded today.
“It was all really shocking,” continues a young woman.
"But since there has been the collapse of the slab, the fires ... Today I have no heating, no hot water or cold water ..."