This Wednesday, May 25 marks International Missing Children's Day.
In 2020, 41,106 disappearances of minors were reported in France.
On this occasion, the program "Criminal Investigations" on W9 returns, this Tuesday evening, to the Marion Wagon case, one of the first high-profile child disappearances in France.
On November 14, 1996, Marion Wagon, 10, disappeared on the way between her school and her home in Agen.
Despite several leads explored by the investigators, the girl was never found.
The lives of Marion Wagon's parents came to an abrupt end on November 14, 1996. That day, their 10-year-old daughter disappeared in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) on her way home from school.
Only 400 meters separate her from her home.
However, the child vanishes in broad daylight, without anyone seeing anything.
Despite significant mobilization, numerous searches and almost unprecedented media coverage at that time, the investigators never found the slightest trace of Marion.
After years of discretion, the father, Michel Wagon, agreed to testify in the W9 program,
Criminal Investigations
, broadcast this Tuesday evening, on the eve of World Missing Children's Day.
Twenty-five years after her disappearance, while the investigation is still open, the girl's parents are now betting on the appointment of a new investigating judge to explore several avenues deemed plausible by their lawyer, Me Georges Catala.
A procedure similar to that of Fourniret
First, that of Michel Fourniret.
If the ogre of the Ardennes was arrested in 2003, he was still active in 1996, at the time of the disappearance of the girl, whose circumstances are strongly reminiscent of those of Estelle Mouzin, for which he half-acknowledged his involvement. .
The 9-year-old girl also disappeared on January 9, 2003 in Guermantes, Seine-et-Marne, on her way home from school.
As for Natacha Danais, she was kidnapped by the serial killer in 1990 in Rezé, near Nantes, in a parking lot located a few meters from her home.
She was then 13 years old.
“These guys [serial killers] have a schedule, a way of doing things, a sexual appetite that may suggest that Marion could have been kidnapped by one of them.
This track is credible enough to be studied, whether to close doors or to open them, ”says Me Georges Catala.
For Patricia Tourancheau, a journalist specializing in criminal cases and cold cases, the hypothesis is plausible: "In 1996, Michel Fourniret lives in Belgium, but he is itinerant, he has scoured quite a few regions in France, he could have makes you be in Agen at one time or another”, she explains, adding that the modus operandi operated by the ogre of the Ardennes corresponds with that of the disappearance of Marion.
“A series of errors”
At the time, it was another suspect who interested the investigators of the SRPJ in Toulouse.
A few weeks after the disappearance of Marion, they put themselves on the trail of a certain Gilbert.
On the day of the tragedy, he would have asked on an amateur radio "a discreet route" to get to Agen.
The profile of this fifty-year-old bricklayer intrigues the police.
The man, who works in the Agen sector, has just been imprisoned for the rape of another girl.
They find his vehicle, believing that it could have been used to transport the child, sold in the meantime by his daughter.
They discover that the back seat has been partially burned.
When questioned, the young woman gives a funny explanation: she would have set fire to the bench because it was stained.
Considering the track as serious, the investigators will launch other investigations and explore several caves in the region where the man used to go.
But one decision will shatter everything.
Five months only after the start of the investigations, the SRPJ is divested of the investigation for "lack of results" for the benefit of the gendarmerie.
As a result, the excavations stop, the man comes out of the investigators' sights and the track is abandoned.
Gilbert, he died in 2003 of cancer in Fresnes prison.
For Me Catala, “a series of errors were made.
Maybe not for twenty-five years, but at least for a long time.
Things weren't done the way they should have been."
An investigation without DNA
Another hypothesis: what if Marion had not disappeared on her way to school?
For Michel Wagon, his daughter could have been abducted at the foot, in the hall or in the elevator of his building.
A modus operandi that can be reminiscent of that of François Vérove.
Before committing suicide, this former policeman left a letter in which he confessed to being the serial killer nicknamed "le Grêlé", wanted for thirty-five years.
In particular, he recognizes criminal acts until 1997, a year after the disappearance of Marion Wagon.
“We have to see if this man was around Agen, it is possible that we will be told no, but we have to check it”, estimates Me Georges Catala.
A hypothesis swept away by Patricia Tourancheau, author of the book
Le Grêlé: The killer was a cop
(Seuil, 2022).
If the modus operandi corresponds, the temporality does not stick, according to the specialist: “In 1996, he was a motorcycle policeman in the Hauts-de-Seine.
All the acts of which he is accused took place in Paris or in the Paris region”.
Leads that could be taken up by investigators, but without having the girl's DNA.
If Marion's hair was placed under seal after her disappearance, it is no longer usable.
“It's very difficult to investigate if you don't have the missing person's DNA.
Even with goodwill, there is a lack of care, ”laments the parents' lawyer.
Only hope for the family: that the investigating judge resume the investigation from the beginning.
“We have to let him do it, he is aware of this vertiginous abyss into which the file has been precipitated for twenty years, but he is of great competence”, estimates Me Catala.
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