• Open since Monday in Strasbourg, the trial of Jean-Marc Reiser continued on Tuesday.

    The second day was devoted to the personality of the alleged murderer of Sophie Le Tan.

  • What to remember?

    That man, solitary, does not have a linear childhood.

    Then, as an adult, was guilty of numerous excesses and outbursts of violence.

  • Several of his former companions have delivered chilling testimonies.

At the Assize Court of Bas-Rhin in Strasbourg,

In his box, the man could pass for a retiree like any other.

Bald head with graying hair, glasses that he puts on occasionally, corpulence that has become average with his detention for almost four years... Jean-Marc Reiser does not wear, like the vast majority of the accused who preceded him on this bench, the crime inscribed on the forehead.

But who is really the alleged perpetrator of the murder of Sophie Le Tan in September 2018?

The question arose at length before the Assize Court of Bas-Rhin, in Strasbourg, on Tuesday.

Several people who knew him testified, including four ex-girlfriends.

Without forgetting the long report of the personality investigator.

What emerges, first of all, is a childhood that is anything but linear.

The native of Ingwiller, 62 years old today, grew up in a family where “marks of attention are not given”, notes the expert.

His father, a former sailor converted to a forest ranger in the Niederbronn-les-Bains sector, often comes home “dead drunk”.

“And he had his hand on my mother.

I sometimes intervened, ”recounted Jean-Marc Reiser, who then often took refuge with his paternal grandfather.

Until being placed, at the age of 15, in a correctional home in Bischheim.

The conflicts had become too frequent and serious with his parent.

“Once he had threatened him with an axe.

Another, he had thrown a phonograph [a record player] at her head before fleeing into the forest,”

“Very intelligent” and “cultivated”

When he comes of age, the young man validates his bank BEP, joins La Poste and becomes a postman in the Alsatian capital.

A sufficient situation to embark on a new life?

Yes and no.

When questioned, some of his former co-workers evoke "a bugger man with a vicious look" "He had a perverse and manipulative behavior with high self-esteem", summarizes the expert.

“This personality survey is oriented and dependent,” replies the person concerned, before launching into long explanations.

Like monologues, often precise and substantiated, and which allow him to gain the upper hand over his interlocutors.

This is another character trait of the accused, presented by several witnesses as "very intelligent" and "cultured".

Curious about many areas – “he knew all the Greek and Egyptian gods” and has a master's degree in archeology – but therefore also a “manipulator”.

And able, "to go into a spin when something did not please him", recalled an ex-concubine with whom he had his only daughter.

They remained “as a couple for ten years but never lived together”.

A decade during which she recounted having been the victim of violence.

Not sexual.

“When he caught me in the kitchen, for example.

I fell on the lit stove, it hurt me a lot, and he kept hitting me.

»

“I was afraid that he would strangle me”

A few minutes earlier, one of the first relationships of the accused had also recalled a chilling scene.

As a student, Isabelle M. had just stood up to her boyfriend in the summer of 1986. “He found me in my room, put me in his car, drove very quickly to a forest.

He threw me to the ground, kicked me.

I was afraid he would strangle me and in the evening we went back to his place.

I wanted to escape but he changed the locks on the apartment.

“She finally managed to get rid of” her claws “a few weeks later.

“I holed up with my parents and moved to Brest.

“Where Jean-Marc Reiser still found her and” harassed for a year “still told the fifties, still marked by the episode.

“I was scared for ten years on the street.

I felt it behind me,

even if he wasn't there.

[…] I was lucky he didn't kill me.

»

All also described an elusive companion.

Accustomed to backpacking walks in the woods and without known stable friendships.

“I didn't know him,” summed up Joëlle F., who nevertheless dated him from 1987 to 1997. Until Jean-Marc Reiser was imprisoned and then convicted of two rapes.

“You can't leave him, it has to come from him.

»

Justice

Sophie Le Tan case: "There was no homicidal intent", reaffirms Jean-Marc Reiser at his trial

Justice

Sophie Le Tan case: Almost four years later, Jean-Marc Reiser tried for an "awful" crime

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