Three months after the mysterious disappearance at the end of November of Leslie Hoorelbeke and Kevin Trompat in Deux-Sèvres, the gendarmes found two bodies in Charente-Maritime, not far from the home of a suspect, but have not yet formally identified them.
The body of a man "was exhumed in a field along a road" in Puyravault, where excavations were carried out on Friday, and that of a "woman was exhumed in a wooded area" in a neighboring town, Virson, the official said. Saturday night the Poitiers public prosecutor, Cyril Lacombe.
"The identities of the victims have not been formally established at this time. The bodies will undergo an autopsy on Sunday and Monday," it added in a press release.
The autopsies will be carried out in Pontoise, in the Parisian region, at the Criminal Investigations Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN), whose experts participated in the investigations.
Depending on the outcome of the autopsies, a press conference will be held on "Monday or Tuesday" to give more information on the course of events and the investigation, Mr Lacombe said.
This double finding puts an end to hopes of finding Leslie Hoorelbeke, 22, and Kevin Trompat, 21, alive, who have not shown any signs of life since the night of November 25-26 in Prahecq, a town with 2,000 inhabitants. near Niort. The young woman's dog, who was with the couple at the time of the disappearance, remains unaccounted for.
After Nathan Badji, on Friday night, the prosecutor also charged a second man, introduced simply as Enzo C., with "murders," "kidnapping" and "tampering" with a crime scene.
The two suspects, aged 22 and 23 respectively, were also remanded, as was the first of the three defendants, Tom Trouillet, against whom the murder charge was not upheld.
On Friday afternoon, around thirty gendarmes first searched a field in Puyravault, where "they stayed until very late", according to residents interviewed on Saturday morning by AFP.
It is in this town located an hour's drive from Prahecq that the couple's belongings were found in a container for recycling clothes on December 8, 300 meters from the home of the parents of Nathan Badji, the first defendant.
According to a source close to the investigation, the couple's disappearance could be partly linked to drug trafficking involving some of the protagonists of the case.
The families of the disappeared had immediately ruled out the hypothesis of a voluntary disappearance.
During the raid on January 5, Kevin Trompat's mother-in-law said that he "had practically 10,000 euros on him" the night of his disappearance, an amount that he had brought to Prahecq, according to her, "to buy a car."
On Saturday, the new lawyer for the missing woman's father and stepmother, Mourad Battikh, said they were "collapsed" and "in shock" after the murder indictment announced Friday night that "leaves no hope." to find Leslie alive.
Kevin Trompat's father briefly visited the dig site Saturday, before leaving without comment.
