All that remains is the European Court of Human Rights.

The Court of Cassation on Wednesday rejected the appeal of Willy Bardon, thus confirming his conviction on appeal to 30 years of criminal imprisonment for the kidnapping, forcible confinement, rape and murder of Elodie Kulik in 2002, which he still has. denied.

In this 20-year-old case, the defense had seized the highest French court, believing that the law had not been correctly applied during the appeal trial in Douai, in July 2021. Willy Bardon's lawyers notably raised a " fuzziness” in the court’s written reasons.

For them, the court did not sufficiently explain how the scenes of the abduction, the rape and the murder formed an "indissociable whole".

In his judgment consulted by AFP,

the Court of Cassation found on the contrary that the Assize Court “justified its decision without incurring the alleged grievance”.

“The procedure is regular and the sentence has been legally applied,” she decides.

Willy Bardon's lawyers immediately announced to AFP their intention to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Willy Bardon, a 48-year-old former plumber and bartender, has always maintained his innocence.

At first instance in December 2019, the Somme Assize Court sentenced him to 30 years in prison for kidnapping and forcible confinement followed by death, and rape.

He had attempted suicide when the verdict was announced, swallowing a powerful pesticide in the courtroom, and had spent more than two days in a coma.

A year and a half later, the Northern Court of Appeal also found him guilty of murder, sentencing him to the same sentence.



Elodie Kulik, a 24-year-old banker, was kidnapped from her car on the night of January 10 to 11, 2002, after an unexplained accident on a departmental road in the Somme.

She had been raped, killed and burned.

Before dying, she had called the emergency services, a chilling 26-second recording considered the centerpiece of the file, where her screams mingle with two male voices.

The investigation had skated for ten years, until the identification of a suspect, Grégory Wiart, thanks to a new DNA analysis technique.

But the man had died in the meantime.

Searching his close circle, justice had implicated Willy Bardon, recognized by several witnesses on the recording.

But neither his DNA nor any other formal “scientific proof” of his presence were found at the crime scene.

Justice

Elodie Kulik case: Willy Bardon sentenced on appeal to 30 years in prison

Justice

Murder of Elodie Kulik: Willy Bardon again pleads "not guilty" on appeal

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  • Court of Cassation

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