After more than a year of inquiries, French investigators believe a lesbian crime of passion is at the center of the unsolved murder of the daughter of a famous actor and her female lover.
The double poisoning suggests undertones of love, greed and jealousy.
Geraldine Giraud, 36, and Katia Lherbier, 32, were both killed and dumped in a storm drain near the home of forester Jean-Pierre Treiber on Dec. 9, 2004.
Geraldine, who had acted in two mainstream films, lived in the shadow of her showbiz parents. Roland Giraud, 63, is a veteran of French film and mother, Maaike Jansen, is an actress.
Katia, openly lesbian, fronted a pop group.
Geraldine and Katia vanished on Nov. 1, 2004, after a weekend at the Giraud country cottage at La Postolle in Burgundy.
They had met on Oct. 14 at the Sens home of Katia's singing teacher, Marie-Christine Van Kempen. Katia lodged with Van Kempen, who is Maaike Jansen's sister, and police are working on the theory that they may have had a relationship.
On Nov. 23, 2004, while police were still looking for Giraud and Lherbier, they arrested Treiber. He had made purchases on the women's credit cards and withdrawn more than 2,000 euros (US$2,380).
He said he knew nothing about their whereabouts and claimed they gave him their cards and pin numbers, telling him to use them. Three weeks later their bodies were found in the drain in front of his house at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne.
A set of Geraldine's keys were found in his garden, as well as a partly melted portable phone.
Treiber had financial problems and had given a small-time crook his savings for a `business venture' that went wrong.
If not for DNA testing, Treiber might have been found guilty alone. Electrical tape used to tie up the victims carried his DNA and traces from two others.
At Van Kempen's flat in Sens police allegedly found the poison chloropicrin -- used to make chloroform, the gas that killed Lherbier and Giraud.
After being questioned and released in March last year, Van Kempen, 51, was taken into custody in November under investigation for complicity to murder.
This week Van Kempen, Treiber and his girlfriend will be confronted with three witnesses in the Sens office of investigating magistrate Mickael Ghir. The witnesses claim they saw the trio plotting the murder at a cafe in Fontainebleau in mid-October 2004.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
RSS