More than ten years after his death, the extent of his crimes still conceals mysteries.
A skull found in Yonne, in the “cemetery” of the victims of serial killer Émile Louis, has been identified as that of a previously unknown woman, the prosecution said on Wednesday.
An association of civil parties considers, for its part, that this is a new victim of the assassin.
“The DNA of the skull found and the research into relatives make it likely that the bone in question would belong to Marie Jeanne Ambroisine Coussin, born in 1935,” Hugues de Phily, prosecutor in Auxerre, told AFP.
Marie Coussin, a child from the assistance who lived alone in a shelter, had disappeared in 1975. Her home was on the route taken by Émile Louis as a bus driver.
This woman did not appear on the list of seven known victims of Émile Louis, arrested in 2000 for having killed these young disabled people on social assistance, between 1977 and 1979. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004, then again on appeal in 2006, he died in October 2013 in Nancy at the age of 79.
“The investigation does not allow us to go any further at the moment,” added the prosecutor, when asked about the possibility that this is a new victim of Émile Louis.
“No avenue is favored because no objective element allows it,” he explained.
“It is surely the eighth victim of Émile Louis who has been found,” however, believes Pierre Monnoir, president of the Association for the Defense of the Disabled of Yonne, who represent four civil parties.
Scientific advances
Pierre Monnoir cites as proof that the skull was found “between the two bodies” of Émile Louis’ victims.
The killer had indicated this location but only the remains of two victims, out of the seven known, had been found in 2000. The president asked that, from now on, "we search the entire area" where the remains were found, which would not hasn't been done yet, he is surprised.
Didier Seban, a lawyer specializing in “cold cases”, unresolved cases, and who represents the Coussin family, told AFP that he had contacted the prosecution to request an extensive search.
“At the time, we insisted on having it but we were opposed to the lack of means,” he said.
The skull was discovered in December 2018 in Rouvray (Yonne).
The investigators then hoped that it was one of the victims who had not yet been found, but the DNA analysis yielded nothing.
Years later, with the help of scientific progress, new research was made possible, but this time based on “parental” DNA.
This method makes it possible to link a genetic fingerprint with others from the same family in order to verify its conformity with those present in the National Automated Genetic Fingerprint File (FNAEG).