Three months after the disappearance at the end of November of Leslie Hoorelbeke and Kevin Trompat in Deux-Sèvres, the gendarmes found two bodies in Charente-Maritime, not far from the home of a suspect indicted for assassinations. These discoveries result from excavations carried out on March 3 and 4 in Virson with experts from the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN).
Things belonging to the couple had already been found in a clothing recycling container in this town on December 8, 2022. Two men have already been indicted in this case and a third, placed in police custody since March 2, was to be presented to an examining magistrate, this Saturday, March 4.
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Leslie Hoorelbeke, 22, and Kevin Trompat, 21, disappeared on the night of November 25 to 26, 2022 in Prahecq, a town near Niort. On March 2, 2023, a first suspect, Tom Trouillet, 22, was indicted for “kidnapping and forcible confinement” and placed in pre-trial detention, according to the Poitiers prosecutor’s office. Common friend of Leslie and Kevin, he was to host them in his house in Prahecq, the night of their disappearance.
On January 5, during a search to find them, he told reporters that he had seen them “around 5:30 p.m.” on the day of their disappearance before leaving for “a techno evening”. The record of the young man’s telephone communications, however, showed that he had returned to see his friends in the village during the evening and that he had exchanged messages with Leslie Hoorelbeke until late at night.
The trail of drug trafficking
On March 3, a second man, Nathan Badji, 22, was indicted for “murders”, “modifying the inventory of a crime to obstruct the manifestation of the truth” and “kidnapping and kidnapping”, said the public prosecutor of Poitiers, Cyril Lacombe.
According to Le Courrier de l’Ouest, the phone of this man had been located in the same places and at the same time as that of Tom Trouillet, the night of the disappearance. It was in Virson in Charente-Maritime where he lived with his parents that the bodies of the two missing were found. The family home was searched and a suspect’s truck seized, while a third suspect was to be indicted on March 4.
According to a source close to the investigation, the disappearance of the couple could be partly linked to drug trafficking. During the January 5 search, Kevin Trompat’s mother-in-law told reporters that he “had practically €10,000 on him” on the evening of his disappearance, an amount she had brought to him in Prahecq, according to her “to buy a car”. On March 4, the new lawyer for the father and stepmother of the young Leslie Hoorelbeke, Me Mourad Battikh, let it be known that they were “collapsed” and “in shock”.
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