• Michèle Chabert and her daughter Christine had their throats cut on January 7, 1993 at their home.

  • 28 years later, the case finally seems resolved.

  • The investigators were able to confuse the father and husband of the victims thanks to the DNA of traces of semen found on the pants of the teenager.

  • The suspect, who until then had a solid alibi, denies the facts.


The investigators and the five examining magistrates, who followed one another on the file, had to be patient.

But their persistence paid off.

28 years after the assassination of Michèle Chabert, mother of a family, and the murder and rape of Christine, her 13-year-old daughter, the investigation has finally been resolved.

A man, now 72, was indicted and jailed on Wednesday.

This is the husband and father of the two victims, who had their throats cut at their home in the town of Sassenage (Isère) on January 7, 1993, we learn from the Grenoble prosecutor's office.

Their bodies had been discovered in their respective rooms.

An alibi that will have lasted for almost 30 years

The suspect had a solid alibi, however.

At the same time, he was supposed to be in Romania, his country of origin, to spend the Christmas holidays in the company of the couple's 8-year-old son.

This alibi will have lasted almost 30 years before the progress of science comes to contradict it.

The DNA of traces of sperm found on the teenager's pants made it possible to identify the father of the family.

In the days and months which followed the tragedy, the investigation did not lead to any convincing leads and the multiple calls for witnesses, including one in the television show

Witness number one

 by Jacques Pradel in 1995, did not succeed. no significant progress.

Since then, the gendarmes "never gave up the search for the truth", explained during a press conference Colonel Lionel James, commander of the research section of the Grenoble gendarmerie, in charge of the investigation since. the beginning.

The suspect says he can't remember anything

At the beginning of 2021, following yet another rereading of the file by the investigators, the laboratory of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie "revealed numerous traces of the suspect's semen on the pants of his daughter Christine", detailed in the press the public prosecutor of Grenoble Eric Vaillant, welcoming the progress of laboratory techniques.

"Today, we can discover DNA in much finer traces."

Placed in police custody on Monday and faced with "unequivocal" data, the suspect told investigators "that assuming it was him", he had "no memory of having committed the acts", according to the official. prosecutor, adding that he had remained silent before the examining magistrates.

“This long-term investigation illustrates the need (…) to never lose sight of these unresolved cases,” concludes Eric Vaillant.

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  • Grenoble

  • Justice

  • Assassination

  • Murder

  • Cold case