The body of Magali Blandin, mother of four children who disappeared in early February, was found on Saturday near Rennes.
Her husband confessed to killing her with a baseball bat and was charged with murder.
According to the elements of the investigation, a "criminal conspiracy" to kill Magali Blandin had started in November 2020.
More than a month after the disappearance of Magali Blandin, mother of four children, her body was found on Saturday morning near Rennes on the indication of her husband, who confessed, after a month of silence, to have it killed with a baseball bat, against a background of "criminal conspiracy".
A disappearance reported on February 12
A body, "most certainly that of Magali Blandin", a 42-year-old specialist educator missing since February 11, was found in a wood of Boisgervilly, two kilometers from Montauban-de-Bretagne, in Ille-et-Vilaine , where her husband lives, the Rennes public prosecutor, Philippe Astruc, announced at a press conference on Saturday.
Her disappearance was reported on February 12 by a colleague, herself alerted by the school, noting that she had not come to pick up her children.
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The couple were going through a divorce
Jérôme G., 45, confessed in police custody "to be the author of the premeditated murder of his wife with whom he was in the process of divorce," said Mr. Astruc, adding that the death was certainly "extremely rapid ".
He was indicted Saturday after midnight for "attempted murder by spouse" for a first criminal project hatched at the end of 2020 and for "murder by spouse" before being remanded in custody.
His parents, aged 72 and 75, were also indicted, in particular for complicity in murder by spouse, and placed in detention.
The couple's four children, aged 4, 7, 12 and 14, were in emergency care on March 5.
They are now in an undisclosed location.
Placed in custody on Thursday, Jérôme G. confessed to having killed Magali Blandin on the morning of February 11 after dropping his children off at school, waiting for him in front of his apartment in Montfort-sur-Meu.
According to his account, he struck her twice with a baseball bat, resulting in her death.
He then returned the following night to "meticulously erase" the traces of his crime and bury the body in a hole dug in a snowy forest, after covering the body with quicklime.
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Several complaints filed for domestic violence
Magali Blandin had left her husband in September.
She had filed a complaint against him for domestic violence, and declared on this occasion "to have been able to be violent herself", according to the prosecution, which closed the complaint without follow-up.
Without a job, Jérôme G. is restoring his house and renting out hangars.
His criminal record is "not very significant", according to the prosecutor.
"Organized gang" and "criminal conspiracy"
"This crime, which is part of the sad list of domestic homicides, finds its specificity in its inclusion in an organized gang that brings together both the parents of Jérôme G., and relatives of the Georgian community to which he rents a shed" , continued the prosecutor who evokes a criminal scenario "of a very great complexity".
According to the elements of the investigation, a "criminal conspiracy" to eliminate Ms. Blandin began in November 2020 between the husband and his Georgian relations, to whom he paid 20,000 euros to execute his wife.
For their part, the Georgians dispute any link between this sum and the disappearance of Ms. Blandin.
Three people indicted for "attempted extortion"
The case had two twists and turns this week with the arrest and indictment of three Georgians and the placement in police custody Thursday of the husband, so far out of the question.
The latter had informed the investigating judge on March 4 that he was the victim of an "attempted extortion of a sum of 15,000 euros", feeling "threatened".
"Some Georgians, having a recording of the husband in which he declared his intention to kill his wife, blackmailed him by asking him to give them 15,000 euros in exchange for their silence," said Philippe Astruc.
The perpetrators of this extortion attempt, two men born in 1990 and 1975, and a woman born in 1996, were indicted Thursday for attempted organized gang extortion.
One of them, whose presence near the home of Magali Blandin is proven, is also indicted for murder in an organized gang, according to the prosecutor.
The two men were imprisoned.
A Georgian neighbor of the husband, born in 1981, was indicted on Saturday evening for "attempted organized gang extortion" and "destruction of evidence of a crime to obstruct the manifestation of the truth".
He was also remanded in custody.
The investigation had brought to light "a context of tension within the couple linked in particular to the management of household resources".
"My client found himself in a psychological impasse, he did not support the departure of Magali", reacted Me Jean-Guillaume Le Mintier, lawyer of the respondent.
“MG sees the family as a building. You have the four pillars of children and the main pillar, his wife. The moment that pillar disappears, that's all that collapses,” he added.