The Somme Assize Court examined Thursday, June 10, the confessions of Jacques Rançon for the murder of Isabelle Mesnage, on which he retracted and which, for the defense, does not coincide with the facts.
Read also: Jacques Rançon confesses the rape and murder of Isabelle Mesnage
These confessions, made in June 2019, at the seventh and last custody hearing of Jacques Rançon, implicated in this "cold case" dating from 1986, took the investigators by surprise. Laure Brunel-Dupin, behavioral analyst for the gendarmerie, described
"confessions that come suddenly"
, in a
"fairly rare" form
, without the slightest change of tone.
In the midst of the confession, the suspect
“took a moment to pause and asked if he should make it up.
We told him not to invent but to continue his story, ”
said Hervé Gobourg, gendarme who led the investigations relaunched in 2018 after the establishment of a possible link between the murder of Isabelle Mesnage and the crimes committed in Perpignan by Jacques Rançon, in 1997 and 1998.
"No confessions at all costs"
He had finally recounted having raped Isabelle Mesnage in her car, having strangled her, then having cut her penis and her breasts to erase her DNA.
He had repeated his confession before the examining magistrate, before retracting by mail, claiming to have confessed so that he would be left alone.
To read also: At the Assizes of the Somme, Jacques Rançon, "killer of the Perpignan station", refutes the accusations
"It was not confessions at all costs,"
assured Hervé Gobourg.
But
"in these confessions, I find a lot of Moktaria Chaïb"
, one of the two victims of Perpignan,
"and not a lot of Isabelle Mesnage",
launched for the defense Me Xavier Capelet.
The investigators repeated to him
“36 times”
that the mutilations of the bodies of Moktaria and Isabelle were strictly identical, he accuses, pointing out that Isabelle did not have her breasts cut, or at least not entirely.
The photos of the two mutilated bodies were distributed, as well as a map showing the proximity of the place of discovery of Isabelle's body and those of an attempted kidnapping and rape committed by Jacques Rançon.
Lawyers for the 61-year-old driver maintain that the second investigation was conducted against the
"killer of the Perpignan station"
, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018.
"Teddy bear"
Several testimonies came to complete Thursday the portrait of this man described since Tuesday as silent,
"crude", "primary"
, yielding to his sexual impulses.
On the contrary, friends of youth evoked a man nicknamed
"Teddy bear", "kind"
and
"helpful"
.
A friend claiming to be his "confidant" at the time recalled that this shy who was too fat
"cried [when a girl rejected him] saying that none of them would ever want to date him, like a child who never saw him. 'ain't got his toy'
.
To read also: Ransom trial: "misses" of the investigation into the murder of Isabelle Mesnage to its spectacular revival
His companion in 1986 and mother of his first child, Carole, whom the accused described Tuesday as a
"great love"
, draws a much more ambiguous portrait.
In a soft voice, she begins by portraying a
"nice"
Ransom
at the start of their relationship and says that he
"shoved her only once"
.
Then, questioned by Me Didier Seban for the civil parties, remembers that he slapped her because she looked at an
"ex"
.
Pushed down the stairs when she was pregnant.
Pursued by car when she left him, then watched behind a tree and strangled.
On the other hand, she assures that she has never suffered sexual violence.
A former victim at the helm
A former victim, Virginie, provided a chilling testimony by videoconference: Jacques Rançon strangled her in a park in Amiens one night in August 1999, before trying to load her into his car.
To read also: The "killer of the station of Perpignan" Jacques Rançon judged in Amiens for a "cold case" of 35 years
In an attempt to save herself, she lets him stroke her chest.
So
"he said to me 'go away, go away quickly',"
she said, still traumatized.
"I'm sorry for what I did to him
,
"
the accused apologized, fists on his hips, without showing any emotion.
But to Me Seban who asks him if he never draws a lesson from his convictions, whereas he had already been convicted before these facts for rape with a weapon and for having threatened a woman with a knife, he replies:
"I don't think ”
.
