Escort on Trial for Murder of Lyon IT Specialist Before Fleeing to Morocco

The events had taken place in Saint-Genis-Pouilly in August 2017. Jean-Luc D., a 52-year-old IT specialist from Lyon, had gone missing after making a detour through the Pays de Gex on August 16, 2017. He had just spent his vacation in Savoy. His sister and his employer had noticed his disappearance and were concerned. The quinquagenarian’s body will be found on August 19 in Italy, partially burned. This is the beginning of the investigation.

The judicial police discover that the IT specialist’s phone stopped emitting on August 17 in Divonne-les-Bains, and that his bank card had been used by a woman who had made large cash withdrawals in France and Switzerland, while hiding her face, reports Le Progrès. The investigators manage to trace the presumed murderer, Anaëlle Prunier, 22, a bar waitress and secret escort girl. She will be arrested in October 2017 while preparing a trip to Morocco.

During a search of her apartment in Saint-Genis-Pouilly, the investigators found evidence proving that the young woman killed the IT specialist. Placed in custody, she refuses to talk about the blood stains carefully cleaned or masked under paint, discovered in her apartment and in the trunk of her car. She will eventually explain that her client bled after sadomasochistic games he asked her to practice on him.

She changes her version. She claims to have been the target of his sadomasochistic practices and to have stabbed the victim, "terrified" after he tortured and raped her. Once the crime was committed, Anaëlle had moved Jean-Luc D.’s car to Oyonnax and transported his body to Italy. The sequence of events and the version of the facts will fill a large part of the debates before the assize court starting Monday, May 3. The murder trial will last three days.