Jacques Rançon, "
the killer of the Perpignan station
", will be sent back to the Assizes of the Somme in June, accused of the rape and murder in 1986 of the young Isabelle Mesnage, a judicial source said on Wednesday, confirming information from the
Courier Picard
.
The body of the young 20-year-old woman was found on July 3, 1986 in a wood in the town of Cachy, a village in the Somme, a dozen kilometers from Amiens.
Her clothes were partially torn and objects belonging to her were scattered not far from her.
To read also: Jacques Rançon, "the killer of the station of Perpignan", sentenced to life imprisonment
For lack of convincing evidence, the investigation had stalled until a dismissal pronounced in February 1992. But, after denying any involvement, Jacques Rançon had ended up confessing the rape and the murder of this young computer scientist in June 2019 , during police custody in Béziers, where he is serving a life sentence with a safety period of 22 years after his conviction in March 2018. This would be the fourth known crime of this former driver- 59-year-old storekeeper, after those committed on Moktaria Chaïb, 19, and Marie-Hélène Gonzalez, 22, both raped and killed in the station area of the Pyrénées-Orientales prefecture in December 1997 and June 1998. He had already convicted by the Assize Court of the Somme in January 1994 for a rape committed two years earlier.
During his custody, Jacques Rançon had recognized the kidnapping of the young woman while she was hitchhiking.
He had then "
hit, raped before strangling her
" then "
harmed her body with the same modus operandi as that which will be used for her future victims
", according to a statement from the Amiens prosecutor's office at the time. .
Lawyers for the victim's family, intrigued by the similarity of the modus operandi, had made it possible to relaunch the case.
"
The photograph of the crime scene, which was a true copy
" of those of Moktaria Chaïb and Marie-Hélène Gonzalez, "
was a trigger,
" Corinne Herrmann told AFP.
The investigation also showed that Jacques Rançon was living in the region at the time, that he knew "
particularly well (...) the discreet places existing in the surroundings
" and that "
the place of the facts was located in a geographical proximity. of the scene
”of the 1992 rape.
