On Wednesday, at the Assize Court in Amiens, a 26-second recording of Elodie Kulik's call for help, raped and killed in 2002, was broadcast to try to determine the possible responsibility of accused Willy Bardon.

The broadcast of the recording of Elodie Kulik's call for help, raped and killed in January 2002, seized the Assize Court of Amiens on Wednesday without allowing any real progress in the determination of the possible liability of Willy Bardon, alone on the dock.

It's a 26-second recording, in which we hear the screams of the victim, and the repeated "allo" of the firefighter operator. Over seven seconds, less than three of which are exploitable, "at least" two male voices, according to the experts, are audible, although quite far away.

Broadcast twice in the courtroom, the recording plunged into total silence the court as the public, the civil party as the defense. The jurors then listened twice, using headphones. "It's a moment naturally very emotional because we hear Elodie die, in a way, in this recording," had summarized before the resumption of the debate Didier Seban, lawyer Jacky Kulik, the father of the victim.

Registration was the subject of 14 expertises

During the investigation, five persons in custody and to whom the tape was submitted had stated that they recognized Willy Bardon's voice in January 2013. He was subsequently indicted. The recording is therefore "one of the key pieces" of the case, in the words of Gabriel Dumenil, Willy Bardon's lawyer. It was also the subject of 14 expertises during the survey conducted from 2002 to 2017. Its operation has occupied almost all debates Wednesday morning, and will be mentioned again in the coming days.

At the helm, Christophe Stecoli, a technical and scientific police engineer, came to present the conclusions of an expert assessment he conducted with a colleague in 2014: it was a question of comparing the voice of Willy Bardon, recorded during almost ten years after the fact, with the male voices heard in the cry for help. This specialist first stressed the difficulty of carrying out this work, given the poor quality and short duration of this last recording, as well as the exceptional situation of enunciation. And his analyzes, notably of the pitch of the voice, the speed of speech or the accent of the speaker, "slightly reduce" the probability that the voice of Willy Bardon is that heard in the call made by Elodie Kulik.

"It appears that the experts are not sure," said Seban after the hearing. "On the other hand, the witnesses and the relatives recognized the voice of Willy Bardon, and the expert confirmed to us that the recognition by the relatives was worth much more than the scientific recognition, and that is what counts".

" " I recognized my daughter's voice " "

Defense, on the contrary, has engulfed itself in this space of uncertainties: voice recognition, "this is the only area in which we are told that science can do nothing". And "people, by their only voice recognition, could get better results than science? It is not serious, as regards the administration of evidence before a court of assizes," lambasted Gabriel Dumenil.

"One thing is certain, I have unfortunately recognized my daughter's voice, and this is not the only voice I've recognized," said Jacky Kulik.