Le Figaro
Nice
Like all relatives of the disappeared, Annie Audoye is subjected to a form of Chinese torture.
Waiting, uncertainty and doubt are like torture.
She has been trying to find out what happened to her daughter, Marie-Hélène, for 33 years.
This radiant young woman, six feet tall, with magnetic eyes and long black hair, has not given any sign of life since May 21, 1991, in Monaco.
It was the day after the 44th Cannes Film Festival.
She was 22 years old.
“It’s not so much a trial that we want from now on.
No, we want to understand, to know what really happened and above all to find Marie-Hélène's body
,” comments Annie Audoye's lawyer, Me Sophie Jonquet.
After years of wandering, failings and a dismissal pronounced in 2013, the investigation was reopened by the promising "cold case" unit of the Nanterre public prosecutor's office and entrusted to judge Sabine Kheris, renowned for having obtained confessions. of the serial killer Michel Fourniret.
“The investigation has been started from scratch, which is an excellent thing.
Auditions of Marie-Hélène's entourage were redone.
People never heard have also been heard or must be heard
,” continues the lawyer.
DNA expertise is also underway on a skull discovered in Vence in 2012 and
“which could correspond to that of a young woman”
, says Me Jonquet.
This bone will be compared to a milk tooth of Marie-Hélène Audoye, kept by her mother.
“The results should come out soon
,” announces the lawyer.
“We have good hopes for this file
,” whispers a source close to the investigation, without elaborating further.
Marie-Hélène Audoye
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Hope is almost all that remains for Annie Audoye, 78 years old.
Courage too, and extraordinary combativeness.
In her apartment in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes), this mother of three lives like a recluse.
Since the death of her husband in 2011, she has devoted herself alone to the search for her daughter.
The living room table is covered with files related to the case, as well as photos of Marie-Hélène.
Two other rooms in the apartment are full of archives, initials of all colors and potential clues.
This is the investigation of his life.
“You can’t forget your children.
I would like us to find his body, I owe it to him
,” she testifies, letting out a sob.
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Disappearance
Dressed in a sleeveless down jacket over a striped shirt, Annie sits in an armchair and puts on her red glasses.
She goes back in time and unfolds with remarkable precision the events surrounding the disappearance of Marie-Hélène.
On May 21, 1991, the weather was as mild as spring by the sea. The young woman was on tour.
A medical visitor, she travels through pharmacies on the Côte d'Azur and Monaco.
It was also in the principality that she was seen for the last time, at the beginning of the afternoon.
She has an appointment with a pharmacist, but he is absent.
So she leaves a little note on a post-it to let him know she's coming and hits the road again behind the wheel of her white Renault Super 5, registered 5023 VD 92. To go where?
No one knows to this day, except those who had something to do with the disappearance.
In any case, neither Marie-Hélène nor her vehicle were ever seen again.
Annie rereads the little note left by her daughter to the pharmacist she was to meet in Monaco on the day of her disappearance.
Nicolas Daguin / Le Figaro
Annie is not immediately concerned about her daughter's silence and absence.
This Tuesday, May 21, it's something else that's bothering her.
“Her boyfriend, with whom she had been living for some time in Cagnes-sur-Mer, called me to tell me that there was a message on Marie-Hélène's answering machine.
I told her not to listen to her and that she would do so when she got home.
And then he called me again the following days for the same thing, which annoyed me because I didn't understand why it concerned him
,” she remembers.
So far, Annie believes her daughter is on tour.
He sometimes leaves like this for several days.
It's the early 1990s, there are no cell phones and means of communication are limited.
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The panic
Four days later, Marie-Hélène is still absent.
This time, it's Annie who phones Étienne* (the boyfriend) to get some information.
“I asked him for the registration number of my daughter’s R5 and what outfit she was wearing when she left.
He didn’t know how to answer me!”
, she continues, still surprised.
The latter immediately went to the couple's home.
In a few minutes, she finds a piece of paper with the registration of her daughter's car and three empty hangers corresponding to as many of her outfits.
Still without news, Annie filed a handrail at the Antibes police station the following Monday.
“I first went to the bank to find out if there had been a bank transaction on his account, but no,”
she explains.
The next day, it was her husband who went to the Cagnes-sur-Mer police station where he obtained a family interest search (RIF), a procedure which no longer exists today.
She had lots of friends, no awkwardness with her family, and no reason to leave.
Sophie Jonquet, lawyer for the Audoye family.
“That’s when I started to panic,”
recalls Annie, sunk in her chair.
She thinks about the car accident.
After all, the roads are dangerous on the French Riviera and even more so in the hinterland.
Without forgetting that Marie-Hélène's tour was to take her to Briançon (Hautes-Alpes).
With a few friends, Annie and her husband travel the region, looking for the little white car.
Very quickly, posters were printed and distributed widely.
“We even managed to get them into Air France flights!”
, says the septuagenarian.
For its part, the judicial police are carrying out some investigations without much vitality.
Perhaps the investigators thought at this time that Marie-Hélène had run away.
“She had a lot of friends, no discomfort with her family and no reason to leave
,” says Me Jonquet.
Annie Audoye reading a letter from her daughter to a friend.
She talks about her intimacy, her relationship with her then boyfriend.
Nicolas Daguin / Le Figaro
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The mistress
The young woman's relatives were interviewed, including Étienne, on June 4.
This one hardly interests the PJ agents despite the shaky alibi he serves them.
His schedule varies from one audition to another.
Above all, this young man is linked to the disappearance of a child in Théoule-sur-Mer in 1983. At that time, he would have claimed to be the last person to have seen the child.
But there again, the police do not establish any connection.
No more when they discover that Étienne has a mistress, with a more than intriguing profile.
First of all, this one is much older.
“She’s a cougar
,” says Me Jonquet.
Then, she would handle impressive quantities of money and support Étienne, with whom she would have fallen in love.
She would also frequent the local underworld and have shares in dubious businesses.
Finally and above all, she would be sickly jealous of Marie-Hélène.
“It happened to him to damage his clothes, to scatter hair clips and perfumes belonging to him at the home of my daughter and [Étienne] to mark his territory
,” Annie certifies.
He texted me that I would make a very good police officer but that this family should not be touched.
Annie Audoye, mother of Marie-Hélène Audoye.
Knowing about her partner's adultery, Marie-Hélène considered breaking up several times.
“The very morning of her disappearance, she was talking about it with a friend on the phone,”
continues her mother.
Her lawyer goes straight to the point:
“We consider that the boyfriend is the Gordian knot of this case.
He made erroneous statements from his first hearing, he is an inveterate liar and he had a mistress with a scandalous reputation, who is also linked to organized crime.
“That’s the most logical explanation.”
A lead reinforced by the meager investigations at the time which nevertheless established with almost certainty that Marie-Hélène returned home after leaving the Monaco pharmacy on May 21.
“We can consider that there was an altercation at home, with the possible intervention of the mistress and that things degenerated
,” speculates the lawyer.
However, neither of these two protagonists was ever worried.
“Not surprising when we know that [the mistress] was only questioned for the first time six years after the disappearance of Marie-Hélène”
, reprimands Me Jonquet.
And Annie tells us the chilling message that the director of investigation at the time gave her when she discovered that Étienne had, through his father, very high-ranking connections:
“He told me by text message that I would make a very good police officer but that this family should not be touched.”
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A cry from the heart
Because unlike the PJ, the young woman's family moves heaven and earth, questions, checks, cross-checks.
A helicopter is rented, sonar purchased to probe the Durance canal, private detectives hired, etc.
And then, every time witnesses think they have seen Marie-Hélène somewhere, her loved ones run to check.
This limitless quest takes them all the way to Spain.
But they always return home empty-handed.
They go so far as to promise a nice reward to anyone who provides them with testimony or a decisive clue.
In vain.
Two anonymous calls located the missing woman on the Paris ring road and on a boat off the coast of Cannes: hopes dashed, once again.
Several times, witnesses thought they recognized Marie-Hélène.
Like here with an actress on the poster of the charming magazine Nicolas Daguin / Le Figaro
After 22 years, the age of Marie-Hélène when she disappeared at the wheel of her white Renault, justice delivers the blow and dismisses the case.
The case was closed in 2013.
“This investigation was carried out against common sense from the beginning
,” breathes Me Jonquet.
The reopening of the investigation ten years later by the “cold case” center is a huge relief for Annie.
Because she is sure, someone knows.
So, while praying that Judge Kheris, who has already visited her several times in Antibes, will bring her the news she has been waiting for over thirty years, the septuagenarian repeats her message like a cry from the heart: “
Even anonymously, tell us where Marie-Hélène’s body is so that we can offer her a burial, a shroud.”
Marie-Hélène Audoye would be 55 years old today.
Anyone likely to provide useful testimony to the investigation is asked to contact the “cold case” cell at the following address: temoignages.coldcase.tj-nanterre@justice.fr.
*The first name has been changed