Less than two weeks after the elucidation of the murder of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti in Pontcharra (Isère), a judicial investigation will be opened in the case of the disappearance in 1985 of a 19-year-old girl, in this same town.

The lawyer for the victim's family, Me Bernard Boulloud, “gave me a complaint on May 20 concerning the disappearance of Marie-Ange Billoud.

Judicial information will be opened,” Grenoble prosecutor Eric Vaillant told the press on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old girl disappeared on May 9, 1985, as she was about to leave Pontcharra to hitchhike to Chambéry.

About a year later (May 22, 1986), Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti (25), mother of two, also disappeared while distributing newspapers there.

“This does not exclude questioning and investigating”

For the latter, a suspect, who lived nearby at the time, had been suspected and then released.

The investigation ended in a dismissal in November 1987. But on May 12, the Grenoble prosecutor announced that this case had “finally been elucidated”.

Thanks to “the perseverance of the families” and the “will” of the investigators, according to Eric Vaillant, the file was reopened in 2020. And this same man, now 56 years old, arrested on the basis of new elements, “has admitted to having killed” Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti.

Grenoble deputy prosecutor Boris Duffau added that if there was nothing to link the Bonfanti case to other unsolved murders or disappearances, "this does not exclude questioning, investigating and possibly making new connections”.

Marie-Ange Billoud's family "came closer to my office when they heard about the Bonfanti affair", declared Monday on RTL Me Boulloud, who filed a complaint with civil action against X for "sequestration “, in order to provoke the reopening of an investigation.

The murder of Liliane Chevènement never elucidated since 1981

The mother of this young girl, who had suspected this same man of being involved in the disappearance of Marie-Ange Billoud, had been sentenced in 1992 for defamation against her, recalled the lawyer.

In the mid-1980s, in Pontcharra, this double disappearance had struck many minds, especially since it occurred a few years after the murder of another young woman from the locality, Liliane Chevènement (30 years old), found in 1981 strangled, four months after her disappearance.

The murderer was never identified.

Justice

Grenoble: "The Bonfanti affair", the mysterious disappearance of a young woman solved 36 years later

Justice

Disappearance of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti: A man indicted 36 years after the facts for kidnapping and murder

  • Cold box

  • Disappearance

  • Grenoble

  • Justice

  • Murder

  • Investigation

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

  • Isere