“There was blood everywhere”: a Montpellier resident imprisoned after the death of Noellie, 22, stabbed to death 30 times in Clapiers

The seals were affixed to the front door of the young victim's apartment. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

The young man was indicted Monday evening for "murder by spouse" and placed in custody at the Villeneuve-les-Maguelone prison. The police are trying to understand this terrible outbreak of violence.

“When I came out around midnight, the door to her apartment was open, there was the emergency services, the firefighters. She was on the ground, on her back, there was blood everywhere, they were giving her cardiac massage. These are really hard images to forget.” Four days after the murder, on the night of Friday to Saturday of Noellie, a 22-year-old young woman, this resident of the Tonga residence in Clapiers is still in shock from this crime that was as violent as it was incomprehensible.

Until now unknown to the justice system

This Monday, July 29, Anderson, 28, a Montpellier resident previously unknown to the justice system, and who worked, like her, as a home help, was charged with “murder of a spouse”, and incarcerated in Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone prison. And since then, the gendarmes of the Jacou-Clapiers brigade, north of Montpellier, have continued to investigate to understand how this savagery came to pass: the autopsy established that the victim had been stabbed about thirty times.

The two young people had met through their work, and had started seeing each other a few weeks ago, in a friendly way for sure, and perhaps more romantically, although this has not been formally established at this time.

An anxiety attack after smoking a joint

According to the account he gave to the police and the magistrate, Anderson went to Noellie's house on Friday evening, where he was to spend the evening and probably the night. “He says she offered him a joint, even though he had never used cannabis before” says a source close to the investigation. In the middle of the evening, he said he felt bad, had an anxiety attack, and called for help, “explaining that he felt like he was dying“.

A large kitchen knife

The existence of this call was indeed confirmed by the investigations. Noellie, he says, asked him to hang up: that's when, according to him, everything changed, and he unleashed himself on the victim, after taking a large knife from the kitchen.

After the crime, the young man called for help again: the nature of the conversation convinced the operator to call the police, as his interlocutor mentioned having killed a woman. Cruel irony of fate: the Clapiers-Jacou gendarmerie is almost contiguous to the scene of the crime, the residence being separated only by a small street from the headquarters of the police forces.

The suspect, who had fled when the investigators arrived, actually walked alongside this building and passed in front of the gate just a few minutes before the arrival of the first responders and the patrols. Unfortunately, it was too late to save the victim.

He reappears on Saturday at the scene of the crime

While initial searches were quickly launched among his family and around the residence, the young man returned to the scene of the crime around noon on Saturday, where the police, who were carrying out technical observations and the neighborhood investigation, arrested him. Had he come to surrender, as he claimed, or had he come to hide possible clues?? The investigation will have to determine that.

At the end of the day in any case, supervised by investigators, the murderer appeared at the Jacou roundabout, very close by.

The knife hidden in a bush near the roundabout

“He is a very young man with dark skin, quite thin, who looked impassive and yawned a lot"says a shopkeeper who witnessed the scene. They searched for quite a while in the bushes near the bus stop and after a while they found a fairly large knife, about twenty centimetres long, and they showed it to him: he nodded, and they put the weapon in an envelope."

It seems that a telephone, which he had thrown away as he fled after the crime, was also discovered at that time.

"Serious health problems in his childhood"

"His family is perfectly aware of the pain of the victim's family, and they themselves are completely devastated" indicates Me David Mendel, who is defending the young man imprisoned Monday evening. “This is a boy who had significant health problems in his childhood, including proven psychiatric difficulties, with medical follow-ups. I think there is a psychiatric dimension to this terrible and inexplicable act of violence. He has no criminal record, there is no sexual connotation in this crime.”

The only downside for the lawyer: the qualification of murder by spouse, that is, that of a femicide. “They weren't living together, they weren't a settled couple, there was no domestic violence or breakup.” The lawyer now hopes that the psychologist's and psychiatrist's expertise will provide some clues to explain this terrible murder. “Even if we didn't know her, it's pitiful for her” recognizes, upset, a neighbor of Noellie.

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