On the third day of extensive excavations to find the body of Delphine Jubillar, who had been missing for more than a year in the Tarn, the search area was widened on Wednesday, noted an AFP correspondent.
Soldiers, equipped with a rotary cutter, were visible at the bottom of a valley, and almost all the shrubs in the raked area were cut down, according to the journalist present on this site near Cagnac-les-Mines, where the 33-year-old nurse and her family.
Her husband Cédric Jubillar, indicted for murder, has been imprisoned in the Seysses remand center, near Toulouse, since his arrest in June 2020.
“There was a lot of ground preparation. The targeted area was cleared before the dogs passed through,” a source close to the investigation told AFP on Wednesday.
“Today, it is the turn of a specialized team with detection devices, geodetic radars and metal detectors which participate in the excavations”, he added.
On the first day Monday, then Tuesday, it was an area located below a farm and close to a path that had been raked. A large white tent, set up by the military, was moved to the bottom of the valley on Wednesday, noted the AFP correspondent.
The sector of the farm, already partially searched in the weeks following the disappearance of Delphine Jubillar, once more caught the attention of investigators following statements by an inmate from a cell next to that of her husband.
He claims that the number one suspect, who strongly denies his involvement in the disappearance of his wife, told him that he buried the body in the farmhouse, which has since burned down.
One of the lawyers close to Delphine Jubillar, Me Philippe Pressecq, believes little in this hypothesis, considering that the plasterer painter “manipulates everyone from the start”.
The search system brings together nearly a hundred gendarmes and soldiers. Among them, a team from the Specialized Operational Excavations (FOS) unit, called upon in this type of operation to search for buried or buried bodies, as well as scientific experts from the National Gendarmerie Criminal Research Institute (IRCGN ).
The excavations undertaken might last several weeks, according to a source close to the investigation.