ATS
A bloody murder, an investigation with twists and turns, a suspect who denies and an actor adrift, Gérald Thomassin, a time suspected and since missing. 13 years following the events, the crime of a postwoman from Ain will be tried before the assizes from Monday.
The facts date back to December 19, 2008. The body of a 41-year-old woman was discovered in the Montreal-la-Cluse postal agency, where she worked as a counter clerk, stabbed with 28 stab wounds. This mother of two children was five months pregnant. According to the prosecution, the motive would be villainous and the loot of 2600 euros.
The investigation quickly turns to a marginal, a thirty-year-old living opposite the small post office in this village of Haut-Bugey. The suspect is none other than Gérald Thomassin, actor Caesarized in 1991 as “best hope” for his role in “The little criminal”, a film by Jacques Doillon who discovered him.
The profile of Gérald Thomassin, battered by life and a former drug addict, is intriguing as is his behavior following the murder. He is seen a month following the events crying on the grave of the deceased mother: two women meet him at the cemetery, he confides to them disturbing details regarding the crime scene.
In June 2013, the former actor called his brother and, heavily intoxicated, told him he was the perpetrator of the murder, before retracting the next day. Although returning to his confession and claiming his innocence, the suspect is examined and screwed.
In 2017, a dramatic turn of events: the national automated genetic fingerprint file (FNAEG) informed the investigating judges of a match between the DNA taken from a bag found near the victim’s body and a man, Mamadou Diallo, put in cause a few months earlier in a bank card theft – a case closed without further action.
This paramedic, a high school student at the time of the events, was doing an internship in December 2008 in a company in Nurieux, 5 kilometers from the village of Montreal-la-Cluse.
Not a violent
In front of the judges, this new suspect will admit having gone on the morning of the murder to the postal agency where he claims to have discovered the body of the forties. He says he panicked and fled, following grabbing a wad of cash. Described unanimously as non-violent, he denies being the author of the crime.
“He is very angry with himself for having taken the tickets and for not having denounced this crime, but he was afraid of being accused”, explained to AFP his lawyer Sylvie Noakovitch, “absolutely convinced of his innocence” .
At the end of August 2019, a confrontation is organized between Mamadou Diallo and Gérald Thomassin. He did not show up for this call. The track of the actor is lost at the time following an SNCF control in a train connecting Rochefort to Nantes.
A judicial investigation for “kidnapping and forcible confinement” was opened in October 2019. He has since remained untraceable. A dismissal was pronounced concerning his possible involvement in the murder of the postwoman.
Despite the many gray areas of the file, the former paramedic will appear alone Monday in the box of the Assize Court of Ain. For Ms. Noakovitch, “we take Diallo because he is the only one left”. Psychiatric experts do not find any disorder in this 32-year-old man, his criminal record only mentions speeding.
This legal enigma was the subject of a book signed by journalist Florence Aubenas, “L’Inconnu de la Poste”, published in February 2021 following several years of investigation.
ATS
