• The investigative chamber of the Grenoble Court of Appeal decided not to prescribe the murder of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti committed in 1986 in the town of Pontcharra.

  • Arrested for the first time 36 years ago, one of his neighbors suspected of having killed him confessed last May.

  • The lifting of the prescription therefore ensures the possibility of holding a trial.

“A great victory and a decision that does honor to justice.

On Tuesday, lawyer Bernard Boulloud welcomed the decision of the investigating chamber of the Grenoble Court of Appeal not to prescribe the murder of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti.

This mother was killed in 1986 in the town of Pontcharra (Isère).

According to counsel, the limitation period was ten years in this case.

But the recent arrest of a suspect, indicted and remanded in custody, has reshuffled the cards.

“The magistrates considered that the starting point of the prescription should run from the day the suspect in the file confessed.

Today, the case is sent back to the examining magistrate.

If there is no appeal, no appeal to the Court of Cassation, the investigation will continue and there will be a trial, ”explains the lawyer.

The main suspect has confessed

Aged 25, Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti, mother of two children, disappeared on May 22, 1986 while distributing newspapers in Pontcharra.

A neighbor had been suspected and then released and the investigation ended in a dismissal in November 1987. But the man, then 56 years old, was arrested again last May.

Faced with his contradictions, he ended up admitting to having killed the victim, indicating also where to find his remains.

Excavations organized in a forest in Isère led to the discovery of the victim's skull last October.

After the elucidation of the murder of Marie-Thérèse Bonfanti, a judicial investigation was reopened.

The suspect was thus indicted for "kidnapping, forcible confinement and murder" and imprisoned.

On December 14, his lawyers filed an appeal to request the cancellation of the indictment of their client in the name of the prescription.

Justice

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

Justice

Isère: After the resolution of the Bonfanti case, justice reopens the file of a mysterious disappearance of 1985

  • Grenoble

  • Isere

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

  • Justice

  • Cold box

  • Murder