What would have pushed Roberto M., a retired sexagenarian, to kill and then cut up his neighbor thirty years his junior? This is the question that will ask the Assize Court of Chartres from this Monday. In February 2020, the murder of Samuel F., 38, roofer and father of three children, from Autels-Villevillon (Eure-et-Loir), had aroused terror in Le Perche.
This February 26, 2020 in the early afternoon, a motorist alerts the gendarmes following a sinister discovery: the body of a man without head and without arms lies on the side of the departmental 30, near the river La Sonnette. The rest of the body was found below the road a handful of hours later. The medical examiner's initial findings show that the victim sustained several injuries to the chest and then the body was cut post-mortem, possibly with a saw. The autopsy then shows impacts of lead in the body, especially on the face. It establishes death between 24 and 48 hours before the discovery.
Quarrels over 'cigarettes and food'
Very quickly, the investigators look into the trail of Roberto M., a neighbor and close to the victim. This 69-year-old former heating engineer just contacted the gendarmerie two days before the facts to complain about the victim, who asks him for "cigarettes and food", specify our colleagues of L'Écho Républicain. He was first heard by the gendarmes as a witness before his home was searched and he was placed in police custody in the process. Shotguns and an empty cartridge case in a garbage can were found at his home. But it is his garden that immediately points to Roberto M. as suspect number one: traces of blood are exhumed in the grass while a piece of human flesh, belonging to the victim, is taken from the bumper of his vehicle.
The neighborhood presents the suspect as an "isolated", "violent" and "nervous" man. He has reportedly threatened residents with his gun and has already argued with the victim. Roberto M. is already known to the judicial authorities for "possession of prohibited weapons", "non-payment of alimony" and "concealment of theft". But while in custody, he denies any involvement in the murder. "He simply indicated that the victim came to his house every day to do small jobs and then had an aperitif. He added that it was difficult to make him leave, "says at the time the prosecutor of the Republic of Chartres Rémi Coutin, adding that the investigators could not "determine the motives of the suspect".
Alcoholism
At the end of his police custody, he was indicted for "murder" and "attack on the integrity of a corpse" and placed in provisional detention at the prison of Orleans - Saran, in the Loiret, where he remained until his trial. Since then, the victim's family has been trying to understand the motive behind this outburst of violence. Samuel F. was originally presented as a good father and a serious worker. But he was unemployed at the time of the incident and had sunk into alcoholism. With the respondent, they were now comrades of aperitifs become more and more regular.
" READ ALSO The fight against alcoholism: a long and difficult fight in France
Despite overwhelming evidence, Roberto M. continued to maintain his innocence. The expert opinions of the psychologist and the psychiatrist did not detect in him any abolition or alteration of discernment, nor any problem that would explain a passage to the violent act. Until Friday, he appears at the assizes of Chartres, where he faces life imprisonment. Contacted by Le Figaro, the lawyer of part of the family of the deceased, Me Vincent Rivière, indicates that his clients "want, through this hearing, to be as close as possible to the truth, to understand how did we get there." Her colleague, Lucie David, who represents the victim's three children, adds: "Our role is also to prepare them for a possible lack of response.
»
