Moroccan Retiree Charged in Two Decades-Old Murders in France

Mohammed C. caught up in two cold case murders in Isère? The former Renault worker was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention on Monday, December 2, by an investigating judge from the cold case unit of the Nanterre court, reports Le Parisien. He is suspected of the murder of Nathalie Boyer, a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 1988 and that of Leila Afif, a 40-year-old woman in 2000 in Isère. The suspect "was presented today before the investigating magistrate, who indicted him" for the two murders, the public prosecutor specified. He added: "He was then placed in pre-trial detention by a liberty and custody judge in Nanterre."

Mohammed C. had been arrested on Monday, November 25 and placed in police custody in the premises of the Grenoble search section gendarmes due to the presence of his DNA at the crime scene of Laïla. After his custody was lifted on Friday morning, he was presented to a liberty and custody judge of the Dijon judicial court, who placed him in detention, pending his transfer to Nanterre.

The sexagenarian would be behind the murder of Leïla Afif, killed in 2000 in La Verpillière, and that of Nathalie Boyer, 15 years old, found murdered in August 1988 in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier. "The charges against him are totally contested. He is devastated. Justice comes to get him and talks to him about very old facts. He is also devastated by the detention," declared his lawyers Émilie Boyé and Pierre-Vincent Connault, from the Dijon bar. And to specify: his companion, with whom he has been living for five years, "supports him totally." Their client denies the facts.

These two cases are part of the "missing persons of Isère" file relaunched by the cold case unit of the Nanterre court since 2022.