Young girls aged 11 and 17, forced into a car, then drugged and kidnapped for several hours at the home of a 38-year-old man… before being brought home or left in a parking lot.
A worrying, serial scenario, which prompted investigators from the La Rochelle judicial police and those from the Central Office for the Fight against Violence against Persons (OCRVP) to deploy significant resources to trace the suspect, arrested on Tuesday morning in Royan (Charente-Maritime).
The man was to be presented to a judge late this Thursday for an indictment for "kidnapping and kidnapping", "administration of harmful substances", and "possession of child pornography", specifies Nicolas Septe, the prosecutor of Saintes.
On September 10, the parents of an 11-year-old college girl presented themselves at a police station.
The pre-teen explains that a man approached her in the street after her day of school.
Aged in his thirties, traveling in a small dark city-dweller, he showed her a handgun to force her into his car.
Taken to the suspect, she was forced to take "a benzodiazepine-type sleeping pill," says a source close to the investigation.
Five hours later, she is dropped off near her home by her captor.
She does not remember everything, but does not mention any violence, neither physical nor sexual, which medical examinations confirm.
Other tests show traces of sleeping pills in his blood.
A precedent on August 26
This affair quickly reminds the Royan police of another.
On August 26, a 17-year-old girl filed a complaint and delivered a virtually identical story.
She also says she was approached in the middle of the street by a man in his thirties, armed with a knife, before being forced to get into a small dark car.
She also explains that she was taken to this man's home, then drugged and held captive for two hours before being released in a parking lot next to her home.
Tests will show the presence of anxiolytics in his blood.
Like the youngest victim, the teenager was not subjected to violence.
Thanks to the blood tests carried out by the two victims, investigators know the drugs they were forced to ingest.
A requisition is then made from the Primary Health Insurance Fund to obtain the list of people who have obtained reimbursement after purchasing these two products.
A lot of analytical work finally identified a 38-year-old man, domiciled in the area.
It looks exactly like the robot portrait drawn by the two minors.
Tuesday morning, the police arrested him at his home, "accommodation that perfectly matches the descriptions provided by the kids," said a source close to the investigation.
Already known to the police for cases of threats or violence against police officers, the suspect, on the other hand, has no history of minors.
"Diagnosed with schizophrenia", he had collected information on the victims at home ... The first technical expertise carried out on his computer also made it possible to exhume child pornography images.
In custody, the 30-year-old assured that "seeing children regenerated him," says a source close to the investigation.
But he did not give a coherent explanation for his gesture ... "
