Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Fiora Garenzi / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 4:08 p.m., February 9, 2024, modified at 4:10 p.m., February 9, 2024

A man and a woman, arrested Tuesday and placed in police custody the day after the discovery of human bones, likely to be those of a child missing for 20 years, buried in the garden of their house in Pantin, in Seine-Saint -Denis, were indicted this Thursday for murder of a minor, said the Bobigny prosecutor. 

A man and a woman were indicted and imprisoned Thursday for murder of a minor the day after the discovery of human bones buried in the garden of their house in Pantin, in Seine-Saint-Denis, as part of an investigation on a 20-year-old disappearance of a child, the Bobigny prosecutor said on Friday.

A complaint for domestic violence as a starting point for the case

This singular case began in January 2021 when, following a complaint for domestic violence against her husband, a mother with a large family indicated that he allegedly killed her five-year-old son, born from a previous union, in 2004. she had brought back from Togo. A preliminary investigation is then opened to try to determine the existence of this ghost child and to find a possible corpse. The searches then yield nothing, but a judicial investigation, entrusted to an investigating judge from Bobigny, is opened in August 2023, the prosecution detailed on Friday. 

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INFO EUROPE 1 - A couple arrested after the discovery of the bones of their five-year-old child, who disappeared in 2004

After numerous investigations, the 65-year-old man and the 54-year-old woman were arrested on Tuesday and placed in police custody on charges of murder of a minor under 15 years old at the Territorial Security, in charge of the investigation since 2021 During his hearing, the stepfather then told investigators "the location where the child's body was located, buried in the garden of the family pavilion in Pantin," reports the press release from prosecutor Éric Mathais released on Friday.

After the searches carried out on site Wednesday evening, a forensic doctor confirmed "that these were indeed the bones of a child likely to correspond to the age group of the victim", added the magistrate. Accused by his ex-wife since 2021, the child's stepfather designates her as being at the origin of the boy's death, said the prosecutor.