It is a murder that remains etched in all memories in the Aude. It all started on April 19, 2008. On that day, Olivier Bommersbach alerted the gendarmerie to report that he had no further news from his mother, Jocelyne, an ex-accountant, and his stepfather, Jean-Claude Saint. -Aubert, an aeronautical engineer. The couple who married two years earlier have just moved into a housing estate in Argeliers, near the Canal du Midi, to enjoy a peaceful retirement there.
Once there, constables find the breakfast table set, the 59-year-old woman’s phone and purse in the house, but no sign of them. However, a second search will rock the investigation. A notebook is found, hidden in the bathroom cabinet. Inside, a note written in Jocelyne’s hand: “We are taken hostage and have been robbed by Modeste and her friend Fouad. They want to kill us and put us in Modeste’s field in Cruzy”.
Jocelyne’s word made it possible to arrest the culprits
Thanks to her note, leaving little room for doubt concerning the outcome of her disappearance, Jocelyne allowed the investigators to move forward in the investigation. On April 29 and May 5, the mutilated bodies of pensioners were found. Jean-Claude Saint-Aubert received a dozen bullets, before one of his murderers finished him off by throwing a 15-kilo rock on his skull. For her part, Jocelyne was murdered with a shovel, which practically decapitated her as well as a bullet from a revolver.
At the same time, the two murderers are found and arrested. They are Jean-Barthélémy Rathqueber dit Modeste and Fouad Sellam. The two masons had been employed by the couple to carry out work. They would have acted after having heard Jean-Claude Saint-Aubert evoke a return of money of 20,000 euros. In January 2012, Jean-Barthélémy Rathqueber was sentenced to life imprisonment with 22 years of security. For his part, Fouad Sellam was sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonment, including 18 years of security. He eventually died of cancer in prison at the end of 2022.
Notebook © Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash
