Seventeen years after the fact, investigators may be on the verge of uncovering the truth about little Jonathan's case.
Martin Ney, arrested in 2011 in Germany and sentenced to life imprisonment for three murders of young boys and forty sexual assaults on minors, was handed over to the French authorities on Friday January 22 and then indicted on Monday January 25.
Germany made the German pedophile available to French investigators for a period of 8 months, after the revelations of his fellow inmate on his involvement in the disappearance of little Jonathan Coulom, aged 10 at the time of the facts and found dead in the pond of a manor in Guérande, in April 2004, while he was in a holiday center in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, in Loire-Atlantique.
To read also: Murder of Jonathan Coulom: 17 years after the facts, a German serial killer indicted
"
He
[Martin Ney, Editor's note]
told me on several occasions (...) that he, over there in France, abused a boy and that he killed him
", assured in 2017 the Martin Ney's cellmate to the police, indicates
Le Parisien
.
During several long interviews, the fellow detainee then reported the disturbing confessions of Martin Ney, to which the French judge Stéphane Lorentz, who has been requesting the hearing of the serial killer since 2014, confronted him at the end of January as part of his extradition.
Similar procedure
“
The French investigators already had the German lead in mind, because there were very important similarities between what had happened for Jonathan and the little boys killed in Germany by Martin Ney: they were all found with fists and knees tied, in the same fetal position, and were all removed while they were in a holiday center
, ”explains to
Figaro
Me Catherine Salsac, lawyer for the mother of little Jonathan.
Observations that echo the statements of Martin Ney's fellow prisoner, who says that the latter would have said "
that he had often scouted in holiday centers for green classes, boarding schools and other homes and that he 'knew it well
,' quotes
Le Parisien
.
Read also: Jonathan case: an arrest warrant against a German
Another disturbing fact: the ties tied around the wrists and legs of the German children and little Jonathan are “
sailor's knots
”, and seem to have required “
professional knowledge and great thoroughness
” on the part of the killer, specifies Me Salsac.
A detail that could lead investigators on the trail of a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire: "
Martin Ney could have arrived in France via this shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, and come to do scouting at the children's holiday center in Saint -Brevin-les-Pins, especially since this colony hosted employees of the Saint-Nazaire shipyard
, ”which is about fifteen kilometers from the shipyard, wonders the lawyer.
Residents of the mansion and a farmer, potential witnesses
Shortly before Jonathan's disappearance, according to Me Salsac, several witnesses said they saw a car registered in Germany and parked near the mansion, behind which the little boy had been found, plunged into a pond and weighted with a cinder block .
Apart from the testimony of these inhabitants of the manor, converted into a residential residence, that of a farmer, who lived not far from the scene of the crime, strangely coincides with the assertions of Ney's cellmate.
“
He said he was probably seen in France by a man accompanied by a dog.
(...) He said that the man had fixed him intensely, that he had intensely observed him doing what he was doing and that Martin felt exposed
”, reports the fellow inmate , quoted by
Le Parisien.
The parallel drawn by the daily with the words of the farmer, interviewed in 2018, is disturbing: “
So I saw this car with the trunk open and a person on board heading towards the pond.
(...) My dog who had followed the tractor went towards the person, near this guy, and at that point the person came back to his car.
(...) He closed the trunk and that's when I saw the license plate.
For me, it was a German plate, I'm sure
”.
The leather bag trail
The last point raised by the fellow detainee who calls out to the investigators is linked to a leather lace-up backpack containing several documents that the killer would have lost during his escape.
“
He said it contained personal belongings (...) and a flashlight.
But also that it contained things (...) which made it possible to deduce that it was his.
That is why he was surprised and laughed, because he was not identified,
”relates
Le Parisien
, citing the explanations of the fellow prisoner.
“
At the time,
in 2018, the investigators called for witnesses to find this famous bag,
”
recalls Me Salsac.
In vain.
For the moment, Martin Ney denies all these accusations in connection with the Jonathan Coulom affair.
"
Today, the role of the investigators will be to go back up their schedule, which seems to pose a problem, since there is a concern at the time of the facts
", confides Me Salsac.