Jérôme Barella, main suspect in the Lyhanna case, an 11-year-old schoolgirl found dead on June 4 in Gers, was indicted on Wednesday July 15 for murder and rape of a minor under 15, said the Agen prosecutor’s office.
The 41-year-old temporary worker, who was taken from Mont-de-Marsan prison to be heard by the Agen investigating magistrates, “answered a few questions concerning his personality but quickly asserted his right to silence,” said the deputy prosecutor in a press release.
At the end of this interrogation, “he was additionally indicted on charges of murder of a minor under 15 years old preceded or accompanied by rape and rape of a minor under 15 years old”. He was initially indicted for kidnapping and sequestration after the disappearance of the schoolgirl.
He faces life imprisonment.
Started around 9:30 a.m., the hearing, where the suspect was confronted with new evidence against him, continued all day. On Wednesday, he was also indicted for rape of a minor under 15 and sexual assault in another case, the so-called “Rosa” case.
This 11-year-old girl, whose mother had filed a complaint for rape against Jérôme Barella in August 2025 without him being worried, accused the suspect of having raped her “around fifty” times, according to an inspection report. In this case, he also “asserted his right to silence” during the hearing on Wednesday before being placed under a criminal committal warrant as part of this second investigative procedure, said the prosecution.
Arrested the day after Lyhanna’s disappearance at the end of May, Jérôme Barella was then heard by an investigating judge on June 1 and had already remained silent. After the autopsy of Lyhanna’s body, the results of which were known on June 24, the Agen prosecutor Olivier Naboulet requested her indictment “for murder and rape of a fifteen-year-old minor” as part of a supplementary indictment.
Search
This summons on Wednesday before the investigating judge comes after a search on July 6 at the home of Jérôme Barella in the village of Montestruc-sur-Gers, carried out by the gendarmes of the Toulouse research section. Jérôme Barella’s lawyers, Sandra Vazquez and Éléonore Paré, responded that they would not speak on Wednesday.
The events took place in the Gers but the Auch public prosecutor’s office transmitted the file to the criminal department of the Agen judicial court. The investigation began on Friday, May 29 when Lyhanna’s parents reported her missing. She was last seen that day getting into Jérôme Barella’s car leaving his college in Fleurance, Gers.
A vast search system was implemented by the gendarmerie in the surroundings of Fleurance. The child’s body was finally found on June 4 in an abandoned agricultural silo located in a neighboring village, a site in which Jérôme Barella had worked. The autopsy did not make it possible to determine “with certainty”, according to the Agen prosecutor’s office, the cause of the girl’s death but established that Lyhanna was raped.
Justice overtaken by the street
Lyhanna’s death sparked an outpouring of anger and emotion. The suspect had already been implicated in several cases of sexual violence, such as that of little Rosa, but had never been arrested or summoned. The Lyhanna affair thus revealed dysfunctions in the investigation services. Diligent after the death of Lyhanna, a preliminary report of an inspection mission unveiled on June 22 mentioned “failures in monitoring, coordination and management” of the investigation.
Throughout France, citizens have mobilized in court against sexual violence at the call of feminist and child defense associations. On July 4, thousands of demonstrators, including many families with children, gathered again throughout France, demanding from the government a comprehensive law to combat gender-based and sexual violence against women and children.
In the wake of this affair, the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, requested the urgent review of 70,000 complaints concerning violence against minors. Nearly a thousand child crime cases have been identified as “priority” and 675 people placed in detention since June 8, the Minister of Justice announced on Wednesday.
