“He was crying in my arms, he lost all credibility”: at the trial for the death of Aurélie Vaquier, the brother’s suspicions

Dorian, un des frères d'Aurélie Vaquier, ici avec ses avocats Mes Allary et Teissedre. MIDI LIBRE – Yan.Phi.

Samire Lymani is tried by the Hérault assizes for "murder of a spouse". He denies having killed Aurélie Vaquier at the end of January 2021, the victim having been found on April 7, 2021, under a concrete slab, in Bédarieux, at the couple's home.

Jérémy Vaquier, 38 years old, shaved hair, thin beard, walks to the stand, dignified, looking at the Hérault assize court without turning his head towards the accused box where Samire Lymani sizes him up.

The brother of the victim, Aurélie, killed and found in a concrete sarcophagus at her home, in Bédarieux, on April 7, 2021, delivers a testimony that is all the stronger as he is at the crossroads of the questions in this case .
It is he who carries out the research at arm's length when his beloved big sister, with whom he is close, mysteriously disappears at the end of January 2021.

"She’was a free electron, fulfilled by her orgonite creations, she loved solitude, she was a homebody but also capable of leaving overnight" , he says.

But not without his darling cat, his glasses, his phone or even his 3008 as the investigation attests to

"She would never have left without her car, she would not have walked a kilometer to get the bread!", he says.

"But it’s Aurélie we’re looking for, not mushrooms!"

In retrospect, he criticizes the behavior of the accused, who had little involvement in the beatings even though he said he did not know where his partner had gone.

"He wasn’not interested in research, he looked at his feet, at the sky… Once, he told me that he doesn’t come because he has family! But it’s Aurélie we’re looking for, not mushrooms! I told him to drop everything and come,” reports Jérémy Vaquier.

He believes Lymani innocent until this breaking point which tilts the investigation. The accused informed him on February 15, 2021 that his sister had disappeared following a message from February 13 in which she indicated that she wanted to go away for a few days to recharge her batteries.

Double lie for the civil party: the text is in fact from January 28, it is full of mistakes and the IT expert indicates that it was not sent from the telephone or from the ;victim's computer.

"Samire sold a dream to Aurélie"

"This message could not have come from her, it has lost all credibility, asserts the brother of the deceased. And Samire sold him a dream with this idea for a vegan restaurant in Bédarieux… I was stunned by what happened, and he came to cry in my arms saying that my sister had disappeared…"

Lymani takes notes on a white sheet and communicates with his lawyer. Jérémy does not say a single word to him, neither party asking him if he has a message to convey to the accused.

While his half-brother Dorian also evokes, with emotion, the memory of their sister Aurélie, "an affectionate person", Jérémy Vaquier does not leave the room at the moment of the painful hearing of the coroner. Because he and his loved ones are waiting for answers to their questions.

First, on the date of the death of the woman who was found in a tarpaulin, under the concrete slab and a platform, in her home, two and a half months after her disappearance.

A "support mechanism" to explain the death

Empirical forensic medicine cannot do everything and the tarpaulin having protected the body from scavenging insects, whose evolution makes it possible to refine the estimates of death when putrefaction has begun, the range is wide.

"The court is seized for acts committed between January 25 and 31", indicates President Gossent.

"There is no incompatibility with this deadline", nevertheless indicates Dr Bérangère Deangeli who carried out the autopsy.

The reason for death next. Complex. The expert, however, has answers. The cause is not natural, but there is no fatal injury or sign of struggle, mechanical asphyxia is excluded – no "strangulation or strangulation" so –, just like poisoning.

Only a small lesion around the carotid artery following a prolonged "support mechanism" explains the death. "More than a minute, asphyxia can be fatal", specifies the doctor.

The forensic doctor does not accept the hypothesis of a victim buried alive

A so-called "sleep hold", the victim being able to be surprised from behind, would explain the cardiac arrest.
General Counsel Damien Kincher has confirmed that a follower of "Greco-Roman wrestling", a discipline of which Samire Lymani was junior French champion, can know this " gentle death" underlined by the civil parties Messrs Allary and Teissedre.

Finally, if Jérémy Vaquier explained to us before the trial that he still had nightmares because his sister was perhaps buried unconscious but alive, Bérangère Deangeli perhaps reassured him on this point. "The death was of cardiac origin, I am not considering this hypothesis."

 Continuation of the debates this Thursday.

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