Overview
- The Cour de cassation ruled that the Bonfanti case is prescribed because no insurmountable obstacle prevented investigations after her 1986 disappearance.
- The decision bars any prosecution of Yves Chatain, who admitted in 2022 to strangling Marie‑Thérèse Bonfanti and hiding her body.
- The court delivered its judgment in assembly plénière and rejected procureur général Rémy Heitz’s call to evolve jurisprudence so that hidden murders would not begin to prescribe while unknown to all but the perpetrator.
- The ruling will guide similar files handled by the national cold‑case unit in Nanterre, with several long‑running investigations potentially affected, according to press reporting.
- The victim’s relatives condemned the outcome as a profound injustice, with her husband calling the decision a “violent injustice.”