French police confirm former gendarme who killed himself was a wanted serial killer for 35 years

-Police solved one of the oldest open cases in France, that of the rape and murder of a girl in Paris, by identify its author 35 years later: a former gendarme who committed suicide this week.

Thursday evening, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that François V., 59, was the Serial killer and rapist wanted since the 1980s and whose body was found at Grau-du-Roi, near Montpellier (south).

The man nicknamed the “Picado”, after the robotic portrait at the time showed a young man with acne marks, was suspected of “Five crimes committed between 1986 and 1994”, according to the same source.

Concretely, he is accused of the murder and rape of Cécile, 11, in the underground car park of the building where the young girl lived in the north-east of Paris in May 1986, one of the oldest open cases.

François V. is also credited with the strangulation of a couple in the Marais in Paris in 1987, as well as the murder of Karine Leroy, 19, in 1994, according to the daily Le Parisien.

The man committed suicide when investigators they tightened the fence. The examining magistrate had summoned 750 gendarmes working in the Paris region when the facts unfolded in recent months.

According to the public prosecutor, François V. was on the list and summoned for a hearing, but his wife reported missing on September 27 and his body was found two days later at Grau-du Roi.

The tests carried out revealed that your DNA matches that found at various crime scenesadds the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau.

The man, who left the gendarmerie in 1988 to become a police officer, reportedly left a letter confessing the crimes, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to AFP.

According to various media, this father admits to having felt persecuted by the police and evokes his “past instincts”, although he claims to have “done nothing since 1997”. He does not cite the victims or the circumstances.

The lawyer for the murdered girl’s family, Didier Seban, told AFP the “recognition” of the family among researchers and “grief to know that the criminal left with his secrets”.

Source: AFP