The gray areas surrounding the circumstances of the accident that killed the octogenarian couple who disappeared on January 1 haunt relatives.
How did they fall into the water?
Their car was found in the Scheldt canal on Wednesday February 8.
The two bodies of Marie-France and Richard Di Gennaro were inside the vehicle, announced the prosecutor of the Republic of Lille, Carole Étienne, quoted by
La Voix du Nord
.
"
We expected this outcome, but we still have a lot of questions
," said Marie-Hélène Legrand, the eldest daughter of the deceased, to the local newspaper.
The couple disappeared after a family lunch at her New Year's Eve.
The last signal from their mobile phone bounded in Marly, southeast of Valenciennes, at 7:09 p.m., about halfway through their journey back to their home in Roubaix.
Read also“She asked me how I came home”: the testimony of the last person to have seen Héléna the night of her disappearance
Before receiving the call from the prosecutor who announced the dreaded outcome, the daughter of the disappeared first learned of the discovery of the bodies and the car by the media.
"
Learning it like that was very shocking
," she slipped to the newspaper.
"Did something happen before?"
As early as January 4, the couple's neighbors reported them missing after going to their home.
Since then, the family of Marie-France and Richard Di Gennaro has continued to mobilize to find their trace.
Marie-Hélène clarified "
having redone the supposed route of the two missing several times
", reports
La Voix du Nord
.
Richard Di Gennaro's two brothers, François and Tony, have launched a "
call for witnesses for worrying disappearance
" on social networks.
Shocked by the discovery of his brother's car in a canal, Tony Di Gennaro said he wanted to go there: "
We need to see the place where it happened to understand
".
How did the couple end up underwater?
This is the question that Pascale and Jean-Jacques Porcq, Marie-France's sister and brother-in-law, are also asking themselves: "
We expect a lot from the autopsy, to find out if they died by drowning or because of a shock for example.
Why did the car fall into the canal?
Did something happen before?
".
When the car was recovered by the rescuers,
"there were impacts above, on the front windshield and the roof, but that is certainly due to impacts with barges
", said the crane operator at our colleagues from TF1 on site.
A few days earlier, a boatman had reported hitting something heavy in the water with his barge.
Read also Le Scouarnec case: the Ministry of Health had been alerted to the surgeon 11 years before his indictment
For the time being, "
all the hypotheses are considered
" on the disappearance of the couple, said the prosecutor of Lille, Carole Étienne, on February 8, before going there.
An investigation was opened after the report of this disappearance by the sister of the spouse.