At the trial of Jean-Marc Reiser, his ex-girlfriends describe a man "violent" and "manipulative"

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: BENOIT PEYRUCQ / AFP 15:29 pm, June 21, 2023

"He is furious, I tell myself that he will kill me": former companions of Jean-Marc Reiser who appears before the Assize Court of Haut-Rhin for the murder in 2018 of Sophie Le Tan, described Wednesday a possessive, violent and manipulative man. "It's been three and a half weeks of ordeal." Isabelle M. remembers the summer of 1986. A 21-year-old student, she had landed a job for six weeks at La Poste in Strasbourg, where Jean-Marc Reiser worked. Very quickly, the man, a few years older, tries to get closer. "He had a harassing temperament, I was young, I had a hard time saying no. He had me wear me down, I was easy prey."

A relationship begins, it will last less than a month, but will traumatize the witness for a long time. "He was very insistent that we stay together all the time, I started to be isolated from my friends," recalls the 59-year-old. When she doesn't show up for an appointment, he picks her up from her dorm room, takes her to the forest, hits her. "I curl up in a ball, he hits me with his foot, he's furious, wants me to cry... I think he's going to kill me."

"It's starting again"

After the summer, her studies brought her to Brest, she lived in a university residence. "I lived on the ground floor, one night, I hear someone walking on the gravel, it starts again (...) He's popping up, he's always there, harassing me." Even if he eventually disappears from her life, it will take her time to forget this traumatic episode. "For about ten years, when I walked, I would turn around all the time, I would think, 'Where is he, when is he going to surprise me?' It took ten years to leave me."

>> READ ALSO - Sophie Le Tan case: Jean-Marc Reiser denies any premeditation

And 39 years later, having to testify again in court weighs on him. "I have to stir up very painful, very painful things," she says, referring to an episode that "costs her very, very dearly." Invited to speak after these statements, Jean-Marc Reiser admits that he "sometimes has trouble controlling (s)e" when he is "in a state of anger". He admits to having "maybe roughed up a little" the witness at the time. The words used the day before by the personality investigator, according to which the accused "always minimizes his involvement in the violence", then take on their full meaning. It takes the insistence of the president of the court, Christine Schlumberger, that he ends up expressing some "regrets": "I did not think it had marked her so much".

"Not the perfect couple"

Another former companion of the accused, Joëlle F., then took the stand. They had a little girl together, in 1992, their relationship lasted 10 years, but she refers to him as "Mr. Reiser", without giving him a look. "It was not the perfect couple," she euphemizes, evoking "the work of manipulation" that cuts her off from her entourage, and the regular violence, this mazagran received "in the back", this plate "in the face".

>> READ ALSO - Sophie Le Tan case: Jean-Marc Reiser speaks for the first time at the bar

Their relationship broke up when Jean-Marc Reiser was incarcerated in 1997 for rape and sexual assault, but the contact was not really broken until 2018, and the disappearance of Sophie Le Tan. She lived the legal affairs of her ex-companion closely, was placed in custody, testified multiple times to the authorities. "I thought he had reintegrated into society" after his first incarceration, she said. But when she learns of her involvement in the disappearance of the young student, "it was like a no-brainer". "I saw a liar, a fabulator. He didn't give a damn about me."

In his cubicle, Jean-Marc Reiser, who remembers the president's previous requests, expresses remorse. "I wanted to apologize to her for any harm I may have done to her," he said in a neutral voice. "There's no point in making excuses," his daughter's mother retorts, turning to him for the first time. "It would have been better to refrain from making us find ourselves in these conditions."