"
Shrilling screams, like in a horror movie
": The screams heard in the middle of the night in Narumi Kurosaki's university residence and the evidence against her ex-boyfriend Nicolas Zepeda were at the heart of the second day of the murder trial of the young Chilean, Wednesday March 30 in Besançon.
Read alsoAccused of murder, Nicolas Zepeda immediately denies having killed Narumi Kurosaki
About twenty students from this residence had been seized by these "
cries of anguish, terror, shrill women's cries, accompanied by dull noises as if they were tapping against the wall
", on the night of December 4 to 5, 2016 , that of the disappearance of the student.
But no one had located them precisely and no one had called the police.
"The one and only track leads to Nicolas Zepeda"
“
The one and only track that emerges (from the investigation) is that which leads to Nicolas Zepeda
”, insisted at the bar the director of investigation of the judicial police of Besançon, David Borne.
He detailed the multiple elements in charge of the investigation, during a river hearing of nearly seven hours before the Doubs Assize Court.
There is "
no doubt
" that these were the student's cries, they echoed "
from the upper floor of Narumi's residence and, that evening, no one else disappeared
", a noted the policeman.
The defense lawyers, My Jacqueline Laffont and Julie Beneditti, castigated in the evening an investigation focused on Nicolas Zepeda.
“
The idea that it is Mr. Zepeda is a dynamic that runs through your entire investigation.
When it is not Mr. Zepeda, we dismiss
”, launched Me Beneditti at the address of the policeman.
Nicolas Zepeda admitted during the investigation that he was with the 21-year-old Japanese student in his room that same night.
According to him, the cries came from a sexual relationship.
He would have left her alive on December 6, at dawn.
"Narumi is dead"
Narumi Kurosaki will not finally be declared missing until December 13, when teachers and relatives will worry about her absence.
“
We are certain that Narumi is dead
,” assured Mr. Borne before the court, categorically excluding suicide or voluntary disappearance.
But despite intense searches, the body of the student was never found.
A version disputed by Me Laffont according to which Narumi Kurosaki had left with a handbag and shoes which had not been found in her room after her disappearance.
The defense tries to "
transform small details into elements of doubt
", for its part estimated the lawyer for the family of the victim, Me Sylvie Galley.
For his part, the director of investigation admitted to having "
no certainty
" about the circumstances of the girl's death.
In the absence of abundant traces of blood in his room in Cité U, "
we can exclude a death by stabbing, bloody
", he noted.
But according to him, the accused, after having killed Narumi, would have concealed his body in an isolated forest area, not far from Dole, in the Jura, where he had then gone as revealed by the geolocation of his car. rental.
A prowling shadow
The policeman also returned to the presence of a “
Hispanic man
”.
Mentioned by two students, he would have hidden himself in the enclosure of the university residence the days preceding the disappearance of Narumi.
Before the Assize Court, Mr. Borne even revealed the existence of CCTV images, not used during the investigation.
They showed a shadow lurking under Narumi's windows on the night of December 1-2, at the rear of the building.
This late revelation made the defense jump, engaged in a heated exchange of arms with the civil parties.
In pre-trial detention since the summer of 2020 after his extradition by Chile, Nicolas Zepeda had met the student in 2015 at a Japanese university before a stormy separation in the fall of 2016 when Narumi Kurosaki came to study in France.
According to Advocate General Étienne Manteaux, who detailed certain messages exchanged between the two young people, the young Chilean was “
excessively jealous and possessive
” and had not admitted the breakup.
The investigators thus found a "
chilling video
" on the internet in which Nicolas Zepeda addressed threats to the young woman.
In the morning, this one had been described by acquaintances as a “
solar
” and “
brilliant
” young girl who “
bite life to the fullest
”.
The trial is scheduled to continue until April 12.
