Parents of ’A10 Highway Child’ Face Life Sentence in 1987 Murder Case

The Blois public prosecutor’s office has requested the referral of Inass’s parents, the 4-year-old girl whose lifeless body was discovered in Suèvres in 1987, to a court of assizes in Loir-et-Cher, with the same sentence incurred: life imprisonment, reports France Inter. Halima Touloub, Inass’s mother, is accused of aggravated murder of her daughter. "Aggravated intentional homicide of a minor under fifteen years of age," writes the Blois public prosecutor, Frédéric Chevallier, in a final indictment. Ahmed Touloub, her father, is being prosecuted for "complicity in aggravated murder."

The facts date back to August 10, 1987. That day, Ahmed’s family was about to go to Morocco. At night, Halima would have pushed Inass down the stairs. The little girl was no longer moving. The father of the family had meanwhile returned home. His wife told him that the child had fallen down the stairs leading from her room to the toilet. Except that Inass’s two older sisters, aged 8 and 6, would have told their father that it was their mother who pushed Inass down the stairs "saying she didn’t know how to go down to the toilet alone."

The mother confessed to having hit her daughter when she had crises "but not to that extent." The family takes a "hurried" and "quick" departure late at night. The father, the mother carrying Inass, another sister and the three brothers, the youngest of whom was less than two weeks old, get into a golden beige Citroën BX. They make a stop and then continue on their way. At the hearing, the mother declared in 2018 that the 4-year-old child was still alive when getting into the BX. According to her, the little girl died later during the trip. "She said ’Mummy’ and then she didn’t speak anymore, she wasn’t breathing anymore," she confided.

Inass’s death was a well-kept family secret for decades. It was only after more than 30 years that the investigators came across a lead. This includes DNA samples taken from one of her brothers, who was arrested in the context of another case (a simple brawl) in 2016, which allowed them to reveal the identity of the child’s body found in a ditch along the A10 motorway near Blois (Loir-et-Cher).