An almost erased portrait on which only a black fringe and two eyes remain, each highlighted with a thick line of eyeliner.
Glued by an anonymous hand to the trunk of a tree, at the bottom of a ravine in the immense forest of Retz, in the Aisne, this photo printed and protected by a plastic sleeve bears witness to the tragedy that took place. unrolled at the foot of tall beech trees.
It is here, on a carpet of dead leaves, brambles and mud, on the edge of the small village of Saint-Pierre-Aigle, that Elisa Pilarski, six months pregnant, was killed by multiple bites of dog, November 16, 2019.
It is around 2:30 p.m., this gray autumn Saturday, when his companion Christophe Ellul discovers the body of the 29-year-old Béarnaise excruciatingly shredded.
The jet-black riding instructor and the rugby-sturdy airline employee met nine months earlier on the Internet, around their common passion: dog agility competitions.
Between them, they own five dogs, including amstaffs (for american staffordshires).
Short-legged athletes, who must be kept on a leash and muzzled at all times as soon as they go out.
Curtis is currently being held in a kennel in Haute-Garonne./DR
It is precisely one of them, Curtis, a ball of muscles weighing 18 kg with black hair, that Christophe finds next to Elisa's remains.
An hour earlier, the young woman called him in a panic and allegedly told him, he said, that she was being attacked "by several dogs" while she was walking Curtis.
The ramp agent immediately quits his job and heads for the national 2. Throughout the 70 km which separate Roissy from Saint-Pierre-Aigle, he tries to call Elisa back about thirty times, without an answer;
but do not contact the emergency services.
On his arrival, he parks at the end of the road which runs alongside the last houses with slate roofs, engages under the foliage, takes the path which climbs to the left under the forest.
On a set, Christophe finds Elisa's clothes, including her scarf and coat, almost intact.
A little further on, he meets members of the La Passion venery crew who, on this Saint-Hubert day, patron saint of hunters, track deer 700 m away.
Christophe turns back.
And it is at the bottom of a valley that he says he saw "a pack of fifteen or twenty hunting dogs, silent around what I thought to be a tree trunk", testifies- he does on his Facebook page.
Nearby, he sees Curtis, scratches and traces of blood on his mouth.
And finally, the horror.
The tree trunk is in fact the devoured body of Elisa.
DNA tests postponed by several months
At the time of the tragedy, hunting dogs, for a time suspected of being responsible for the death of Elisa Pilarski, were stalking the deer./Josselin Clair / Le Courrier de l'Ouest / Maxppp
Very quickly, two camps clash.
On the one hand, the pro-hunting, for whom this nature enthusiast was attacked by her companion's hound.
On the other, the defenders of animals, convinced that she was killed by the pack which stalked the game.
"How long will politicians submit to these
bleeders
who spread death in our forests?"
»Asks the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, three days after the tragedy.
Support committees for Curtis and his master are created on Facebook, while supporters of the venery accuse Christophe Ellul of having turned his amstaff into a killer.
To see clearly, the Soissons prosecutor's office announced, on November 20, 2019, the opening of a judicial investigation against X, for manslaughter.
The autopsy report published three months later raises doubts.
The death of Elisa Pilarski is due "to a hemorrhagic shock following multiple wounds, whose characteristics suggested the action of one, or more probably of several dogs", declares the public prosecutor of Soissons.
The magistrate adds that Curtis has bitten several people since November 16, including his master and a volunteer at the shelter where the animal was placed.
The results of the DNA tests carried out on the dogs present that day are therefore decisive.
But, too expensive, they will be postponed for several months.
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It was not until November 2020 for the business to finally bounce back.
After nearly a year of investigation against a background of controversy, two veterinarians mandated by justice designate a single culprit.
"The dog Curtis is the sole author of the bites that caused the death of Elisa Pilarski", they conclude in their report.
According to experts, the lesions found on his body correspond to the spacing of the animal's jaw - 3.6 centimeters, or at least 8 millimeters less than that of the offending hunting dogs.
The latter presenting no wounds, the hypothesis of a fight between the pack and Curtis is rejected.
Analyzes of its origins and behavior also accuse the black canine.
Even if Christophe Ellul denies it, he would in fact be an American pitbull terrier, bought from a breeding in the Netherlands and introduced illegally into France.
Worse, his master would have trained him to bite, a practice prohibited in France, which would have made him obsessed with the bite.
A DNA test on 67 dogs
At the end of their unequivocal report, the experts draw the scenario of this disastrous Saturday in the forest of Retz.
Around 1 p.m., Elisa leaves her car with Curtis, whom she keeps on a leash and muzzled.
After a few minutes on the forest path, the dog, excited by the cries and the smells of the hunt with hounds which is about to begin a few hundred meters further, struggles furiously to remove its muzzle.
He bites the young woman for the first time, who calls Christophe Ellul for help at 1:19 p.m.
She turns back to her car, drops her phone, then leaves the path to take a shortcut to the parking lot.
The journey is "marked with traces of blood, scalp, even cerebral material".
Twenty-six meters below, Elisa Pilarski falls on the damp ground on which she dies around 1:30 p.m.
A horror story soon corroborated by genetic expertise, the results of which fall on November 3.
Examination of the 67 dogs - the 62 from Rallye La Passion and the 5 from the Ellul-Pilarksi couple - shows that the victim's DNA is present only on Curtis.
And conversely, the latter's DNA was found on various wounds and under Elisa's nails.
"At this stage of the investigation, the expertises converge and tend to demonstrate the exclusive involvement of the dog Curtis without any element allowing to implicate the dogs belonging to the venery society", declares in the wake of the Soissons parquet.
Curtis' master denounces a masquerade
However, against all odds, Christophe Ellul continues to deny outright.
"For Elisa and Enzo", the son they were expecting, he wants to prove the innocence of his pit bull.
During a press conference organized on November 11, this man "weakened, under medication", according to his lawyer, once again questioned the hunt.
"There are plenty of shadows in this investigation," he said, referring to the manipulation of evidence.
“I'm going to take this whole masquerade apart.
Curtis was never mean, he loved Elisa.
"
VIDEO. Pilarski affair: "Curtis is innocent", assures Elisa's companion
Alexandre Novion, Christophe's counsel, for his part contests "the certainties and condemnations of the experts, which are akin to a verdict before the hour".
The lawyer questions the very methodology of the expert's reports, which are "in contradiction with the results of the autopsy evoking bites from one or certainly several dogs".
He claims to have sent a report to the investigating judge to support a request for a second opinion, which has just been rejected.
"An appeal against this rejection decision has been made and is currently" examined "before the Chamber of Investigation of the Amiens Court of Appeal which should rule in the coming weeks," the prosecutor said on Wednesday. of the Interim Republic of Soissons.
“Christophe Ellul is in a dead-end attitude that makes no sense, retorts Guillaume Demarcq, lawyer for the crew master of the Rallye La Passion and veneur himself.
He tries to manipulate public opinion by stirring up a nauseous conspiratorial background.
" And now ?
Will this extraordinary case end up in court?
Will the judge indict Curtis' master for the illegal importation and possession of the pit bull?
"The way in which he educated his dog also raises the question of his responsibility in the death of his companion," said Me Demarcq.
800 km from the Aisne, the mastiff now lives in a kennel in Haute-Garonne.
Held in Bonrepos-sur-Aussonnelle, the former competition animal has gained weight and spends its days behind the gates of a 4 m2 box.
Unaware that his life as a dog is now in the hands of the justice of men.