On November 16, 2019, Elisa Pilarski, a 29-year-old pregnant woman, was found dead in a forest in Aisne while she was walking there with her dog Curtis. Three months after his death, the DNA analyzes should finally be carried out on 67 potentially incriminated dogs. These are the five pets of Elisa Pilarski and her companion Christophe Ellul, as well as 62 dogs that participated in a hunting hunt in the forest that day. But the time before the analysis of DNA samples is getting longer, the investigating judge having refused the estimate of the first laboratory requested because of its prohibitive cost, as explained on Thursday a source close to the file.
"A concern for responsibility for the commitment of public funds"
"On this question [of cost], who can find it totally abnormal that the magistrates are animated by a concern for responsibility for the engagement of public funds? That the magistrates thus solicit, in certain cases requiring complex and costly expert opinions, several quotes to find the lowest cost, obviously with the same quality requirement? " defends Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, Friday on Europe 1.
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This week, the lawyer of the companion of Elisa Pilarski however deplored that justice is not "able to have the return of genetic analyzes, three months after the tragedy", while the result of these analyzes was sometimes mentioned before the end of February, which will not be the case.
A quote of 200,000 euros
"The DNA expertises are absolutely not abandoned. They are going to be well and truly carried out. The procedure just took a little delay due to the high cost of the estimate presented by the private laboratory initially requested" by the investigating judge, said the source familiar with the matter. The estimate, from a renowned but expensive private laboratory in Bordeaux, amounted to 200,000 euros with 20 full-time people for two months to analyze all the samples. The judge finally decided to request other quotes from this laboratory and from others to no longer assess all samples at once, but in sequences.
A rather classic procedure
A rather classic path according to Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre: "The code of criminal procedure distinguishes the priced expert reports - the most current, of the psychological, medical and toxicological type appraisals - non priced expert opinions, DNA and ballistics, to name just a few. These can sometimes be very expensive and meet the rule of the estimate. "
"The magistrate decides to order an expert opinion. He requests a first laboratory. He obtains a quote. The quote is sometimes too high, so he requests another laboratory. If the quote is still too high, he reduces the sail area on the number of acts that he initially planned to carry out "continues the spokeswoman. "If the urgency does not require that the expertise be delivered within a very constrained period, it can extend it. In the reasoning of the magistrate, there are each time two things: the jurisdictional independence to order an expertise and the responsibility for the commitment of public funds. All to achieve the manifestation of the truth. " In 2019, these legal costs amounted to around 531 million euros.
The Curtis Dog Track
The lawyer of the mother of Elisa Pilarski, Caty Richard, she, regretted "that it was already, too much and wrongly, communicated on the DNA expertises and on the deadlines" as much as these DNA analyzes " do not constitute the absolute Grail ". "The investigating judge is very active in this case. I call to avoid approximate communications, which then give rise to all the conspiracy hypotheses and theses which we deplore and whose first victims are Elisa's parents, who are carried away in spite of themselves in a media whirlwind that only makes their pain more intense, "she said.
Contacted by AFP, a judicial source affirms that the DNA tests "could confirm what now seems most plausible, namely that Mrs. Pilarski was the victim of her dog Curtis".