Toulouse: 35 years later, he is tried by the Assize Court, accused of the murder of Martine Escadeillas
Thirty-five years after the disappearance of Martine Escadeillas, on December 8, 1986 in Ramoville, near Toulouse, the trial of Joël Bourgeon began. This man is accused of having killed him. He confessed when he was arrested in January 2019 but now denies it.
“Almost thirty-six years of waiting. In January 2019, with the arrest of the accused, we believed it. We thought we would finally be able to give Martine the burial she deserves. Live our mourning. Not to forget, perhaps better to accept it but even that, he refuses it to us. Simone Escadeillas pauses. On Monday, December 8, 1986, when she arrived in Ramonville at her sister’s home, she discovered the housekeeper cleaning up traces of blood, her sister’s blood.
Thirty-five years later, this Friday, July 1, before the Assize Court of Haute-Garonne opens the trial of Joël Bourgeon, 58 years old. Arrested on January 22, 2019 between Lyon and Grenoble, this father is accused of having killed Martine Escadeillas, 24, on December 8, 1986. He confessed, while in police custody and in four different reports against the gendarmes of the Sr of Toulouse. Then before the examining magistrate, this former “hoisting gear” trainer turned around. Since then he denies.
This cold defendant, silent after his initial confession, Simone does not doubt his guilt. Like Nicole, her sister and Jean, her brother, like their loved ones, But this trial worries them. What will Bud say? And the defense? And Martine’s body, where is it? A haunting question that has become, over thirty-five years of waiting, a legitimate obsession.
Lovers turned violent?
Even in his confession, Joël Bourgeon remained evasive on this subject. Since then, nothing has moved him. Nor the testimony of Patricia, aged 16 in 1987 (!) for whom he had left Toulouse a few weeks after the “disappearance” of Martine, abandoning his post as holder of the National Education. Nor his confrontation with his former “best” friend, Thierry, Martine’s companion. A young man in love but also a womanizer. Did this confession, on the morning of December 8, 1986, overturn the meeting between Joël Bourgeon and Martine whom he told the gendarmes that he had come to entrust to him, that morning, his secret “love”? As it sweeps away any case, tricky to understand.
How will this father of two girls aged 21 and 25 behave in front of the jurors who railed against his conditions of detention but suffered to cry out his innocence? And in the face of questions from President Roussel and Advocate General Nicolas Ruff? Me Frédéric David, lawyer for the Escadeillas family, worries: “Who always takes and nothing gives, in the end we abandon him. Joel Bourgeon should think about this sentence. By refusing to tell the truth, and refusing to give the Escadeillas family the dignity it deserves, by refusing to say where Martine’s body is, he will see himself severely abandoned in humanity. Excluded from any attempt to reach out and possible understanding! »
The defense, carried by Mes de Boyer Montaigu and Mouton, does not share the analysis. The verdict is expected Wednesday, July 6. Prosecuted for “murder” Joël Bourgeon faces 30 years of criminal imprisonment.
Joël Bourgeon, a long-neglected suspect
35 years and three instructions later, this stirring cold case requires a few hiccups. In the Escadeillas case, they are not lacking. Like the testimony of the neighbor who puts the gendarmes on the trail of a policeman, or a fake policeman and which we notice, ten years after this doctor could not see what she claims to have seen . Yet today she still clings to her vision of 1986 in the shadow of the stairwell.
And what about these summaries of the director of investigation of the gendarmerie, or of Me Michel Catugier then lawyer of the family of the victim but also of the reminders of the judges of instruction where the name of Bourgeon appears? A hypothesis, not a priority but neglected until this 14-page handwritten letter. It dates from January 18, 2016, is sent to the Elysée, to the ministries of the Interior, of Justice and to the Toulouse prosecutor’s office. A friend of Martine is surprised that Joël Bourgeon was not “worried”. The prosecution then reacted and the investigations resumed for the third time. The maid ?