Drama or stunt?
Heard this Wednesday by the Assize Court of Hérault, which judges her father and Audrey Louvet for the assassination of Patrick Isoird in June 2014 in Sète, the 23-year-old daughter of Rémi Chesne, Laurine, produced for the first time a farewell letter from his late mother, to the astonishment of the court.
"I think we have to see that she was not well and that she was going to end her life", explains the young woman, who was 11 years old when her mother, Nadège, left. hanged in July 2009, the day after an extramarital affair with her colleague Patrick Isoird.
An adultery which, according to the prosecution, would have nourished an obsessive rehash and led Rémi Chesne to imagine this deadly ambush against his rival, five years later.
Only here: if the family of Nadège has always expressed doubts, and that the justice reopened the investigation in parallel in 2015, the Assize Court also considered at length this hanging and the possibility that it could not act of suicide.
A terrible suspicion that Rémi Chesne's daughter intends to raise.
"Daddy will explain it to you later"
"My darling," she begins, her voice broken.
I am writing this letter to you to tell you the bottom of my thoughts.
I wish I could have stayed by your side longer, but fate decided otherwise.
Dad will explain to you later the reasons why I left.
It is unfair.
Even though I am no longer physically present, I am watching you from up there.
"
There follows life advice, from mother to daughter, on the importance of family, studies, the danger of drugs and an encouragement to preserve her virginity for her future husband.
In the box, Rémi Chesne bursts into tears.
"If one day you do something stupid, talk to daddy, you know you can trust him."
Keep your wisdom and do not be rebellious with your dad who is always there for your good […] Reread this letter from time to time, I love you passionately.
"
Rémi Chesne's "surprise"
“These letters, the president of the court is surprised, you had never mentioned them…” “They are very personal letters, that's why I had never mentioned them”.
"But you had been heard by the investigators ..." "I thought it was only for Mr. Isoird ...", explains the student in education sciences, dressed in blue jeans and a black jacket.
"Is that your mother's handwriting?"
»Asks the president« Yes, I am convinced of it.
»These surprise letters, undated, it was his father who gave them to him, three to four years after the suicide.
"Wouldn't it have been a great comfort to read them at age 11, those letters?"
»Asks an assessor.
“No, I think there are a lot of things that I wouldn't have understood.
He waited until I was more mature, ”said the young woman, acknowledging in passing that her father knew she would bring them to the hearing.
READ ALSO>
Trial of the bloody cave: the embarrassed explanations of the companion of Rémi Chesne
Me Gérard Christol, lawyer for Audrey Louvet, cannot get over it.
"You hear in the media that your daddy is smeared by this story, you have these wonderful letters that prove otherwise, and you don't give them away?
"" It is only now that we question the suicide of my mother "..." Why your father never mentioned it either?
Laurine Chesne ignores it.
“I'm going to do like your father, who keeps telling us:
I don't understand
.
Well me either, I do not understand ”, sits down the President of the Bar.
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
Me Eva Fournier, Audrey Louvet's other counsel, also wonders about the date and nature of these letters.
Writings of a suicidal woman?
The lawyer doubts it.
"When I read
fate
, she notes, I rather have the feeling that she was able to write it at the same time as her wills ..." Documents written several months before her death, in which she asks not to notify her family in the event of death, and bequeath everything to her husband.
Nadège Chesne "possessed by wizards"
Laurine Chesne, she never doubted that her mother was able to end her life, due to a persistent malaise.
The young girl thus explains that Nadège Chesne multiplied sleepwalking crises at the time - "she would get up in the morning with her hair cut" - and made strange remarks: "I am possessed by wizards, I am going to die". she would have said.
Me Frank Berton, furious that his client's daughter is being manhandled, gets up.
"Do you understand that your father's guilt is being placed on your shoulders?"
"Yes," she cries.
"Do you feel that your father is being accused here of having killed your mother?"
», He thunders.
"Yes, that's why I take the letters out!"
He wouldn't even have wanted to ", sobs the student, before launching this cry from the heart:" My father, he's a good person… He's frank, if he has a problem he'll see the people directly.
He would never have waited five years for revenge!
"
The verdict is expected in the evening of Thursday or Friday.
