Valentin Gomes, a 23-year-old student at the Polytech engineering school in Lille, had disappeared between Saturday and Sunday, near the Vénerie campsite in Signy-L'Abbaye (Ardennes), while he was participating in a week -end of integration of his school.
Tuesday morning, a body was discovered near this village and it is indeed that of the student, we learned from corroborating sources on Wednesday.
The autopsy should be performed in the morning.
"I confirm the discovery this Tuesday morning of a lifeless body in a field around Signy-L'Abbaye, which could be that of the missing student," said the prosecutor of Charleville-Mézières, Laurent de Caigny. The latter had specified Tuesday evening in a statement that a couple of farmers had discovered in one of its fields a body "which presented a very strong resemblance to the missing student" but whose "identification is still in progress".
"This discovered body bore several traces of scratch-type wounds and a certain disorder of clothing was noted", according to the press release, but the first medical findings did not allow "the mechanism and the circumstances of the death" to be established.
“If nothing for the moment establishes the role of a third person in this death, only the continuation of the investigations will make it possible to clarify this point.
To this end, an autopsy will be performed soon, ”the statement said.
"Not described as suicidal or depressed"
Following this discovery, the prosecution ordered "a preliminary criminal investigation of the count of willful violence resulting in death without intention of giving it".
The investigation was entrusted to the research section of the Reims gendarmerie, with the support of the departmental gendarmerie, already mobilized after the worrying disappearance of the student.
Valentin Gomes, who "was not described as suicidal or depressed by his comrades, who even used to see him leave an evening without warning", "had left an alcoholic evening on Saturday and had not returned to the camping the next day Sunday ”, reports the press release.
