Couple missing in Deux-Sèvres: a third man in police custody

Europe 1 with AFP 9:38 p.m., March 02, 2023

A third man was taken into custody on Thursday in the investigation into the disappearance of a couple in November in Deux-Sèvres, a source familiar with the matter told AFP, confirming information from the

.

Two other young men had been arrested successively on Tuesday then Wednesday as part of this case which has been intriguing for three months.

The man arrested on Wednesday was still in police custody in Niort on Thursday evening.

The first suspect is the man who was to accommodate the couple

According to the public prosecutor in Poitiers, the first suspect, who was to house the couple on the night of the events, was heard Thursday evening by an examining magistrate with a view to a possible indictment, and a possible placement in custody. temporary detention, as part of a judicial investigation opened at the end of December for "kidnapping, detention or sequestration".

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This man is the friend who was to host Leslie Hoorelbeke, 22, and Kevin Trompat, 21, the night of November 25 to 26, when they suddenly disappeared in Prahecq in Deux-Sèvres, a town of 2,000 inhabitants near Niort .

His father's home was searched, like his mother's in Prahecq, and investigators seized a converted van belonging to him.

Inconsistencies noted

According to

, the investigators noted inconsistencies between his past statements and the geolocated record of his telephone communications.

The second suspect, placed in police custody on Wednesday after his arrest in La Rochelle, is a 22-year-old man, according to the Poitiers prosecutor's office.

Sources close to the case, he is in police custody in Niort and originally from Puyravault, in Charente-Maritime.

On December 8, in this village, belongings belonging to the missing couple, in particular a hairbrush from the young woman and a road safety certificate from her companion, were found in a container for recycling clothes.

A dispute over drug trafficking remains the preferred track, said a source close to the investigation, without revealing the place of the arrest of the third "young man" on Thursday.

During a hunt organized by the family of Kevin Trompat on January 5 in Prahecq, his mother-in-law, Karine Prat, had told journalists that he "had practically 10,000 euros on him" the evening of his disappearance, a sum that she had brought to him in Prahecq, according to her "to buy a car".