Autopsy Contradicts Suspect’s Account in Murder of Missing French Teen

On January 25, 2023, Sihem had left her grandmother Fatima’s apartment, rue d’Alger, to join Mahfoud H., 39 years old and 14 convictions (at the time of the facts), in his car, of whom she would have been in love. Since then, she had not given any sign of life. The young girl would have, in a communication on the social network Snapchat with one of her acquaintances, specified that if she did not give any news, her brothers should be immediately notified, reported RTL. After the report of her disappearance, the gendarmes of the Gard had launched an appeal for witnesses to find her. Shortly afterwards, they arrested two people: Mahfoud H. and his ex-partner. On February 1, 2023, the confessions of the almost forty-year-old, placed in police custody by the gendarmes of the research section of Nîmes the day before, made it possible to find the lifeless body of the young woman abandoned on the edge of a forest path, col de la Croix-des-Vents. The crime would have occurred "after a dispute related to their love relationship," announces the Nîmes public prosecutor, Cécile Gensac.

On the day of the disappearance, Mahfoud H., now 40 years old, had taken Sihem to his apartment, which the suspect had denied. Last October, he assured the judge that there was a love relationship between him and the victim, reports Le Parisien. "I made two mistakes," explains the quadragenarian. "The first is that I slept with Sihem [...] The second is that the more time went on, the more she clung to me and the more I had trouble getting rid of her." A few days later, he has to appear before the assize court, suspected of a robbery committed years earlier. He recontextualizes in front of the judge: "I have three small children, I have to go back and get back into that atmosphere with children. I’m... I’m not myself. I’m trying to... I have to manage my stress... [...] Given my criminal record and my past, I think I have no chance and that I will go back" to prison... It was a small thing in the eyes of the high school student. "Sihem asked me if she could come and see me at the visiting room," the family man recounts. "It was this thing that triggered this argument."

"I didn’t get up that morning thinking I was going to kill her [...] I was facing her, I put my hand over her mouth, I didn’t want to kill her, I just wanted to make her be quiet. [...] When Sihem collapsed, I didn’t think she was dead...," Mahfoud recounts. The autopsy of the young girl contradicts this version of the tragedy. According to the forensic doctors, the victim died of "strangulation leading to cardiorespiratory arrest." She suffers from a "fracture at the level of the hyoid bone, suggesting that a certain pressure had been exerted on the neck," they note. "I didn’t strangle Sihem," Mahfoud H. contests, who faces a heavy prison sentence. "Sihem is missed by her family and in a way she is missed by me too," the suspect even assured. "I regret my gesture," he added.

According to those close to the victim, there is no love relationship between Sihem and Mahfoud H., described as having a "tendency to deceive for personal gain." "None of Sihem’s relatives indicate that she has confided in them about a sentimental relationship with you," the magistrate is surprised to the suspect. "I have never seen or heard anything that shows that Sihem had a love relationship with Mahfoud," the best friend of Sihem has for example confided. A "tendentious" message between Mahfoud and the young girl also attests to this. "Sihem, you are like my little sister. If anyone touches a hair on you, it’s like they’re touching my daughter," the suspect wrote. "For me, this relationship never existed," assures another friend of Sihem. "I think this relationship was invented by Mahfoud to reduce his sentence."