The investigation into the terrible murder of a 19-year-old student in August in Haute-Saône is progressing.

A man and a woman were indicted for "complicity in assassination" and detained on Friday, announced the public prosecutor of Besançon, Etienne Manteaux.

They admitted having been informed of the plan of three of their relatives to kill the victim, already indicted and imprisoned for "murder" last August, said the prosecutor at a press conference.

On August 18, the body of the student, originally from Tours, was found in a pond in Planche-Bas, a small town located in the east of Haute-Saône.

The autopsy revealed more than twenty stab wounds to the neck and torso, none of which was fatal, which makes it possible to consider "a session of torture", according to the magistrate.

The student eventually drowned, after being thrown into the pond, still dying.

"Nobody assumes having stabbed"

According to the investigations of the research section of the gendarmerie of Besançon, this computer enthusiast had "created software for trading in the field of cryptocurrencies," said Commander Yves Raguin. He revealed to his companion, a 32-year-old man living in Montbéliard (Doubs), that he had collected around 200,000 euros in cryptocurrency, including bitcoins. The latter had informed his twin brother and his wife, domiciled in Haute-Saône, who housed two young people of their family with fragile personalities, aged 18 and 23.

When the corpse was discovered, the 30-year-old companion had first declared to the gendarmes to have been the target, with the student, of a homophobic attack, before admitting during his police custody to have participated in the assassination, with the two young people of 18 and 23 years old. The trio acknowledged their involvement, "even if no one assumes having given the stab wounds," said the prosecutor. And the suspects eventually revealed that the twin brother and his wife helped them plan the crime.

These five individuals with modest incomes had already determined the distribution of the loot to come.

They would also have fomented a first assassination attempt which failed the day before the crime.

They were known to the courts for minor offenses and the woman of the group, who had opened an online account before the assassination, has already been convicted of scams, according to Etienne Manteaux.

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  • Franche-Comte

  • Virtual currency

  • Investigation

  • Indictment

  • Assassination

  • Murder

  • Justice