Martin Ney trial: Jonathan Coulom's grandmother testifies before hearing
Martin Ney, 55, will be tried from Tuesday at the Nantes court of assizes for the murder of Jonathan Coulom, who went missing in 2004. The victim's grandmother has spoken to France Télévisions.
"He was cute, he was a little angel": Jonathan Coulom's grandmother before the Ney trial
According to France Info, a highly anticipated trial opens Tuesday at the Nantes court of assizes: Martin Ney, a 55-year-old German national, will answer for the murder of Jonathan Coulom, a 10-year-old child who went missing during a school trip to the seaside at Saint-Brévin-les-Pins, in Loire-Atlantique, in April 2004.
In a folder worn by time, Chantal Munier carefully keeps photographs of her grandson. "He was cute, he was a little angel. Sometimes I say to myself: why him?" she tells a France Télévisions team, more than twenty years after the events.
A disappearance in the night of 6 to 7 April 2004
In the night of 6 to 7 April 2004, Jonathan Coulom goes missing from the dormitory of a holiday centre at Saint-Brévin-les-Pins. Hundreds of troops quickly comb the surroundings. Chantal Munier learns the news by watching the television news. "I say to myself it's odd, it looks like my grandson. But I tell myself that it's not possible, it can't happen to me. The gendarmerie arrived and told us," she recalls.
Six weeks later, Jonathan's body is found submerged in a pond in Guérande, in Loire-Atlantique. The child had his feet and hands tied, his body weighed down by a concrete block.
An investigation reopened by an arrest in Germany
The inquiry takes a new turn seven years later, when a man is arrested in Germany: Martin Ney, then 41 years old. A children's educator, he admits to having abducted, raped and killed three boys in Germany between 1992 and 2001. For these crimes, he is sentenced to life imprisonment.
In detention, Ney allegedly told a fellow inmate that he used the same modus operandi in the case of Jonathan Coulom. It is on the basis of these elements that French justice was able to build the case now submitted to the Nantes court of assizes.
Life imprisonment sought
The trial of Martin Ney opens on Tuesday 19 May at the Nantes court of assizes. He faces life imprisonment. His lawyers, contacted before the hearing, declined to comment.
Source: France Info