Our series on the Marie-Hélène Audoye affair
1. The missing person from the Côte d'Azur
2. The fiancé and the false leads
3. The impasse of the prostitution network
4. The jealous lover, the last target of the investigation
The end of 1991 is approaching.
Marie-Hélène Audoye has now been missing for over six months.
In Juan-les-Pins (Alpes-Maritimes), a merchant manager of a ready-to-wear store stumbled upon a poster of the wanted poster.
One of those that the mother of the disappeared put up wherever she could.
The shopkeeper has a flash.
She is convinced that she had the 22-year-old as a client at the end of July.
That is to say two months after his disappearance, on May 21, 1991.
The shopkeeper dials the phone number on the wanted poster and finds Annie Audoye.
Marie-Hélène's mother immediately alerts the investigators of the PJ of Nice.
A few days later, the saleswoman is auditioned.
His testimony is incredibly precise.
She says that on July 31, around 10:45 p.m., a man entered the store with two young women on his arm, one of whom was, she is sure, Marie-Hélène.
A beautiful brunette in a black tight dress.
The saleswoman also remembers the absent look of the young girl, like drugged.
She reports another detail.
While accompanying her for a fitting in the cabin, she noticed a burn above her client's left breast.
The man in the 4x4
These nocturnal clients have visibly marked her.
The man looks like a pimp.
He has an accent and addresses the young brunette woman by calling her "Marie" or "my little bitch".
He ends up taking out his bank card and buys her a pink and khaki dress for the sum of 2,000 francs at the time.
"Cherry on the cake" of this providential testimony, the saleswoman even provides the receipt she kept and on which appears the number of the bank card. She concludes by telling the police that she saw the same man again a few days later near his store in Juan-les-Pins. She even wrote down the model and license plate of her 4x4. A rare model.
Investigators find the owner, a certain Claude.
The man is an outcast who lives off odd jobs and has had some trouble with the law.
Not quite the build of a pimp.
But when the police present his photo from their archives to the saleswoman from Juan-les-Pins, the latter is categorical: it is he who came to his shop on Marie-Hélène's arm in July.
However, he is not the owner of the bank card used for payment.
Hamburg sidewalks
The holder of this card is a certain Daniel Messinger.
A name that already smells of sulfur in the corridors of the PJ of Nice.
This Swiss fifty-something living on the Riviera is officially an “artistic promoter”.
But behind his classified ads in free newspapers to recruit young models for photographs lie more opaque activities.
Has Marie-Hélène fallen into a network ranging from charming photos to porn movies?
Worse, would it be in the hands of pimps?
The track is thickening.
French Riviera, nightclubs, pretty girl: the police think they've pulled the plug.
A little more than six months after the disappearance of Marie-Hélène Audoye on May 21, 1991, investigators wonder if the 22-year-old young woman was the victim of a network of charming photos or prostitution.
DR
In April 1992, they even made the trip to Germany, to Hamburg.
On the basis of a testimony, they dig the trail of the presence of Marie-Hélène on the sidewalks of the red light districts of the port city.
The French police officers spend several days there, but nothing brings them in the footsteps of the young woman.
In 1993, they finally get their hands on Claude, "the man in the 4x4" who would have been seen with Marie-Hélène in the store in Juan-les-Pins.
Placed in custody, the suspect denies and assures that he does not understand the questions of the police.
He was nevertheless indicted and placed in pre-trial detention.
He remained two months behind bars before being released.
The trail of the man in the 4x4 collapses.
A sulphurous Switzerland
But investigators insist.
The target now is therefore Daniel Messinger, the enigmatic Swiss.
The one whose bank card paid for the khaki and pink skirt in the store in Juan-les-Pins.
With the elements collected over the months, the police began to "have biscuits".
In 1985, this man was the subject of a complaint for "kidnapping", then he was heard in another procedure for "rape" and "misappropriation of a minor".
On the Côte d'Azur, the 50-year-old is leading the way and owns several properties including the “white villa” in Vallauris and another in Saint-Raphaël (Var).
This night owl frequents many nightclubs, including the Opera in Cannes.
A nightclub where Marie-Hélène often went before her disappearance.
Chilling testimony is placed in the record. That of a young snowboard champion. This young woman tells how, in 1989, she was approached in a nightclub by a man corresponding to the report of Daniel Messinger. Invited to the “white villa”, she claims to have been drugged and held captive for several days. She will eventually run away from the property half naked before being picked up by a taxi. Traumatized by this experience, she never lodged a complaint. But with his testimony, the police think to tighten a little more the trap around the sulphurous Swiss promoter.
On June 1, 1994, more than three years after Marie-Hélène's disappearance, Daniel Messinger was arrested in one of his villas in Saint-Raphaël.
Then indicted and imprisoned.
The only thing he recognizes is having been the man who bought this famous dress, one evening in July 1991, in Juan-les-Pins.
But he fiercely denies that the young girl who accompanied him that evening could be Marie-Hélène.
This time again, the examining magistrate follows the intuition of the police.
Daniel Messinger is indicted for the kidnapping and sequestration of Marie-Hélène Audoye and imprisoned.
"Marie", the coup de grace
On the surface, the case seems tied up. Especially since the arrest of the Swiss businessman was publicized. Tongues loosen and several young women tell how by responding to classified ads they found themselves in a photo studio in Nice where the artistic side of the service is not obvious. In September, Daniel Messinger was indicted for pimping in addition to the kidnapping of Marie-Hélène. However, from the bottom of his cell, the businessman proclaims his innocence and asks several times for his release.
Weeks go by, and evidence is lacking. Admittedly, the profile of Daniel Messinger raises questions, but there is not the beginning of the beginning of a proof allowing to connect him to Marie-Hélène and even less with his disappearance. The investigating judge doubts. The coup de grace fell at the end of 1994, when Swiss lawyers got their hands on the famous woman who was accompanying him in July 1991 in the Juan-les-Pins store. This "Marie" is heard by the police. Yes, she confirms it, she was good with Messinger that night and it was from her that he bought this dress.
The frail edifice crumbles. In December 1994, six months after entering it, Daniel Messinger was released from prison. He is still indicted for the kidnapping of Marie-Hélène, but everyone has understood that the track has cooled. That it is even frozen. The Swiss left France a few years later for Thailand. We won't see him again. The investigation is starting again from square one.
