"Confirmed link" between the murders of Drôme-Ardèche and that of Haut-Rhin

The two murders committed Thursday in the Drôme then in Ardèche, for which a man is in custody in Valence, are linked to a previous homicide by firearm committed on Tuesday in the Haut-Rhin, according to a source close to the investigation . 

"The link with the facts in the East is now confirmed" but "the suspect does not speak for the moment", this source told AFP on Friday without specifying how the link had been formally established.

"He is silent, he does not speak at all on the facts, does not answer questions", confirmed to AFP the public prosecutor in Valence, Alex Perrin, specifying that the custody of Gabriel F., 45 years old, had been extended by 24 hours on Friday morning.

Ongoing checks

"The facts of Haut-Rhin are treated by the prosecution of Mulhouse and Colmar, we try to see if there is a link to be made. It is not improbable, verifications are in progress", added the magistrate.

Thursday morning, the suspect domiciled in Nancy shot and killed an adviser in a Pôle Emploi agency in Valence, where he had been registered until 2013. He then shot the HRD of a company in Ardèche from which he had been had been dismissed in the past, before being arrested by the police.

Very quickly, the investigators made the connection with another case: the murder of a HRD which occurred Tuesday in the Haut-Rhin, followed by the assault of a man also working in human resources in the same department.

According to the Alsatian press, these two people are linked to a social plan that affected, in the 2000s, a company in Eure-et-Loir of which the suspect from Valence was an employee at the time.

The attacker who fled Tuesday in Wattwiller (Haut-Rhin) was driving a red car, the same color as that used by the man arrested in the Drôme.

Expertises were also carried out on the weapons found in his vehicle and on the site of the Ardèche company, and the cartridge cases found in Alsace.