A man will be tried 35 years after the murder of Martine Escadeillas
On January 22, 2019, the gendarmes arrested in Isère a 55-year-old man, suspected of the murder of Martine Escadeillas, a young woman of 24. Disappeared since December 8, 1986 in Ramonville, south-east of Toulouse, blood was found on the landing of her apartment but also in a cellar in the basement of her building. This cold case had a rebound in February 2016, after the reception by the gendarmes of a person who was part of his suspicions about an acquaintance of the victim, Joël B.
Three years later, and after having had recourse to the AnaCrim software and to profilers, the investigators of the research section had therefore decided to challenge this “friend” of the young secretary. After recognizing a “direct implication in the facts” but without making a detailed confession, the man retracted a few days after his arrest. Incarcerated for more than two years, this father has just been sent back to the assizes of Haute-Garonne, according to information from La Dépêche du Midi confirmed at 20 minutes by the suspect’s lawyer.
Trial by the end of 2022
“We have nothing, no seals, no elements, we are on hypotheses. The only testimony does not correspond ”, assures the defender of Joël B., master Eric Mouton. Martine Escadeillas’s neighbor had seen in the building a man of about fifty, bald and of strong build, while at the time the suspect was 23 years old. The lawyer also believes that in the first days of the investigation, “things should have been verified, including the alibis of each other”. On two occasions, this case had been closed, in December 1989 and in 2008.
For its part, the family of Martine Escadeillas believes in the guilt of Joël B. and hopes that the man will say during his trial, which should be held by the end of the year 2022, where the burial is located. of the young woman.