Twenty-three years after the death of little Andréa, the circumstances of the death of this two-month-old baby are finally judged from this Monday by the assizes of the Drôme.
Justice will have taken more than two decades to send Cyril S., 43 years old today, to a court for violence resulting in death without intention of giving it.
Deeds committed in March 1998 in Portugal.
At the beginning of the story, Cyril S. appears as a savior.
When he meets Carla V., 46 years old today, the latter is pregnant and lives almost in the street in Paris.
At that time, the young woman is described as "gentle, passive, expressing little".
An investigation carried out at the time evokes "a homeless woman, in a deplorable state of hygiene, with a pregnancy neither declared nor followed".
Burns to the face and abdomen
In love, Cyril S. recognizes Andréa at her birth on January 13, 1998 at La Pitié-Salpétrière, in Paris.
In the process, the couple left for Portugal, where the grandparents of the young mother live near Porto.
Carla V.'s family notices Andrea's deplorable state of health.
The grandmother will tell investigators that she saw a burn-like lesion on the child's face, as well as burns to the abdomen that are starting to fester.
The girl was barely two months old at the time.
The grandfather declared for his part to have noticed that the parents went out a lot in the evening and that the baby had been left alone several times in the accommodation.
The grandparents threaten the couple to take Andréa to the hospital themselves for treatment.
Cyril S. and Carla V. respond by leaking: they say they are going back to France, but in fact settle in a small apartment on the first floor of a café in the north of the Porto region.
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On the evening of March 18, 1998, the couple burst into the Portuguese café.
In Cyril S.'s arms, the baby is lifeless.
The father assures us that the little girl fell from the changing table.
What confirms the young mother, under the pressure of Cyril S., she will say then.
Transported to the hospital, Andréa died a fortnight later.
Autopsy assessment: a fracture to the head, the brain is damaged.
The child has injuries consistent with shaken baby syndrome "with certainly very violent shaking".
Andrea's great-grandparents file a complaint, an investigation is opened by the Portuguese authorities.
Cyril S. and Carla V. flee for France without claiming the body of the little girl, nor preparing her funeral.
He claims she got her head stuck in the doors of a wagon
To those worried about the death of the girl, Cyril S. explains that during their train journey to Portugal, Andréa got her head stuck in the doors of a wagon, which would have caused the injuries having resulted in his death.
A version that he will also give during his first hearing in police custody.
The investigation continues and the file travels from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, depending on the homes of Cyril S.
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Separated from her companion in 1999, Carla V. filed a first complaint that year.
"They were both heard in 2003 but since then nothing has happened in the case," says Me Laure-Alice Bouvier, the lawyer for the forties.
Twelve years later, the mother writes to the prosecution
In 2010, his client learned of the extinction of public action and wrote to the Paris prosecutor's office.
Twelve years after Andréa's death, the mother refuses that "this crime goes unpunished" and details the mistreatment suffered by her eldest daughter.
According to his version, the couple fed the child poorly, and Cyril S. used to lock the baby in the room so that Carla V. could not approach him.
On the evening of the incident, Andréa regurgitates her milk, but the young mother is not allowed to take care of it before the end of the meal.
Still according to this version, Cyril S. would then have swung his plate in his face and would have taken Andrea in his arms, before throwing the baby on the sofa where she bounces and falls to the ground.
Carla V. then writes that her companion plays “football with his little body”.
“That's what revived the case.
He had to find his ex-companion, ”says the lawyer.
In February 2013, the Paris prosecutor's office ordered an additional investigation.
Twenty-three years later, Cyril S. is the father of a little boy born in 2017 and living with a woman 20 years his junior in Drôme.
The man, committed to the Civil Protection of his region, is described by experts as "violent and manipulative", being able to be "pleasant, caring charmer but also very irritable, aggressive or even violent when opposed to him. ".
Now the mother of two children, Carla V. is a civil party.
For ten years, his lawyer has been waiting: “I hope that this trial will allow my client to finally mourn.
"