Overview

• The case concerns a 33-year-old nurse who vanished in December 2020 during France’s first night-time COVID curfew in Cagnac-les-Mines.
• Investigators conducted extensive searches with volunteers, dogs, helicopters, drones, divers, and even drained a pond, but found no trace.
• Prosecutors cite reported inconsistencies, neighbors’ accounts of screams, a damaged pair of glasses, and unusual parking of the victim’s car.
• The defendant denies the accusation, with his lawyer criticizing investigators for alleged tunnel vision, while media report claims from a former cellmate and an ex-girlfriend that he spoke of killing his wife.
• Nearly 300 journalists are accredited to cover the proceedings, and a lawyer for the victim’s siblings has urged that the case not be turned into a spectacle.