The resolution of a case after 28 years of investigation: a man was charged and taken to prison for the murder of his wife and the murder and rape of his daughter, who were found dead in 1993, near Grenoble (southeast).
The DNA of the sperm traces found in the daughter’s pants, 13 years old at the time, led to the identification of her father, who had presented, 28 years ago, a powerful alibi, which protected him from any persecution in the search for the death of his wife and their child.
The alibi of the suspect’s trip to Romania with his son, at the time of the crime, is not so unshakable anymore, the researchers conclude.
On January 7, 1993, the bodies of Michelle Samper, 43, and her daughter Christine, who had been stabbed in the neck, were found in Sasnaz, near Grenoble.
In the months that followed, the investigation went nowhere, and multiple witness appeals, one on a television show in 1995, made no significant progress.
Since then, police have “never abandoned the search for the truth,” Lionel James, the police chief of Grenoble’s investigation department, told a news conference.
In early 2021, after another reading of the dossier by the investigators, the laboratory of the Institute of Criminological Investigations of the National Gendarmerie “pointed out the existence of numerous traces of sperm of Marian Marinescu (the father) in the trousers of his daughter” Grenoble Prosecutor Eric Veian.
For 28 years, the research has not stopped, he underlined. With the advancement of laboratory techniques, “today we were able to discover DNA in much weaker traces.”
“Detained on Monday and in the face of” unquestionable “data, Marian Marinescu told investigators that” assuming it was him, he has no recollection that he committed the crimes, “Veian added.
The 72-year-old suspect was charged today with “the murder of Michelle’s wife and the murder and rape of his daughter Christine” and was remanded in custody.
