A district of Schiltigheim was cordoned off for this reconstruction.

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F. Florin / AFP

  • The reconstruction of the murder of Sophie Le Tan, in September 2018, was organized Tuesday in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg.

  • Jean-Marc Reiser, who confessed last month was present and stayed in his apartment for more than eight hours.

  • "It was quite trying for everyone," said his lawyer.

It was a long day for investigators in the Sophie Le Tan case on Tuesday.

For more than eight hours, they attended the reconstruction of the murder of the 20-year-old student, killed in 2018. A month after her confession, Jean-Marc Reiser was back in the apartment in Schiltigheim (Bas-Rhin) where he had set a death trap for the young girl

This reconstruction was desired by the defense after the confession of the suspect, made on January 19, in order to "show that the verbal explanations could be corroborated by a material and more demonstrative reconstruction", explained to the press Me Pierre Giuriato, the lawyer for Jean Marc Reiser.

"It's easy to talk, to explain things, but staying consistent in showing how it happened is less obvious," he said.

This reconstitution could, according to the lawyers of the two parties, constitute the final act of the procedure.

It therefore lasted more than eight hours, and mobilized dozens of police and CRS, who had deployed a wide security cordon around the former apartment of Jean-Marc Reiser, in a building on rue Perle, in Schiltigheim, in the northern suburbs of Strasbourg.

Reiser "is still trying to clear customs"

In front of the examining magistrate, Eliette Roux, the representative of the public prosecutor's office, the lawyers and several experts, including the forensic doctor and a morpho-analyst, Jean-Marc Reiser was questioned at length about his actions both in the small apartment of the sixth floor than in the cellar, the various sites of the "crime scene", in the words of Me Giuriato.

“It was quite trying for everyone, he demonstrated by words and gestures.

When it was necessary to make certain gestures on the plastron which represented the body of Sophie Le Tan, it was much less obvious at times ”, exposed the lawyer.

"But the experts who could be questioned did not deny his explanations".

Jean-Marc Reiser “answered questions, without any empathy towards his victim, it was technical, dramatically cold,” lamented Rémi Stephan, lawyer for the Le Tan family.

"He is still trying to get rid of part of his responsibility, while the charges in the case are overwhelming and have been presented to him during this day".

This reconstitution "will not change anything"

"We can't wait for the trial to take place so that the family can begin their mourning process," said Gérard Welzer, another lawyer for the Le Tan family.

This reconstruction "will not change anything", he said, in the face of all the evidence already collected during the investigation.

Jean-Marc Reiser was arrested in September 2018, a few days after the disappearance of Sophie Le Tan, on her 20th birthday.

Until January, he had always denied any responsibility for the death of the young woman.

She hadn't given any sign of life after going to Schiltigheim to visit an apartment.

Reiser, who posted the real estate ad, quickly became the sole suspect.

"It was not an announcement made to sublet this apartment, it was an announcement made to trap a young girl and lock her up at his home, to choose a prey," Rémi Stephan said Tuesday.

This gentleman monitors the people who come to answer this ad from his window, does not open to certain people, and unfortunately opens to others, like Sophie ”.

The incomplete skeleton of the young woman was discovered more than a year later, at the end of October 2019, in a forest in Rosheim (Bas-Rhin), an area where the suspect went regularly.

The 60-year-old had long denied any involvement in the death of the young student, despite several pieces of evidence that seemed to establish his involvement, in particular the presence of Sophie Le Tan's blood in his apartment as well as on the handle of a saw him belonging.

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  • Justice

  • Sophie Le Tan case