"His identity papers were in poor condition, following the stay in the water of their owner, but finally legible."
Commissioner of the Montereau-Fault-Yonne agglomeration district, Mathilde Geai explains how the investigators were able to find out more about the corpse found Sunday, August 1 around 7:50 p.m. in the Seine, in Varennes-sur-Seine, on the borderline of Montereau-Fault-Yonne.
They thus identified a man in his sixties, domiciled in Sens, in the Yonne.
The victim living alone, no signal of his disappearance had been issued. According to the autopsy carried out Monday, August 9, the body shows no trace of violence. The investigation is therefore continuing to find out whether it is an accident or a suicide. "It also remains to be seen whether the body is in the water from Sens or elsewhere", specifies the commissioner.
If the unfortunate man traveled in water from Sens, he was tossed by the waves for a distance of 42 kilometers to arrive as far as Varennes, where he found himself stuck under branches, near the bank. This explains its unrecognizable appearance on the evening of its discovery. “The Yonne river runs 41 kilometers between Sens and the Yonne point in Montereau, and perhaps a kilometer in the Seine to the place where it was found. It takes several days to cover these 42 kilometers so far at the speed of the current, ”comments Pascal Malbrunot, sailor and member of the board of L'Entreprise fluviale de France, an association that brings together waterway professionals.
According to him, “There is a little current in the Yonne at the moment. But he was able to hang on here and there along the way. Only a forensic doctor will be able to date the day of death in view of the state of decomposition of the body ”. This man had been discovered by a sailor and a comrade as they returned together by canoe to their barge, Roki, on the evening of Sunday, August 1.
