TARBES. Cédric Tauleygne, the man suspected of having killed two people in Pouyastruc, near Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées), is still wanted. A call for witnesses was launched this Friday, July 8, 2022.
He can not be found. Four days after the double assassination perpetrated in the small town of Pouyastruc, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, near Tarbes, the main suspect is still at large. This Friday, July 8, 2022, the national gendarmerie launched a call for witnesses to try to get their hands on Cédric Tauleygne, presumed assassin of the two teachers on July 4, one of whom was his ex-partner. A simple physical description is made of the individual, presented as a man of European type, measuring 1m75, of athletic build, with shaved hair and wearing glasses. At the time, he was wearing blue jeans and a dark leather jacket. These are, at this stage, the only elements available to the authorities, who have not been able to find his trace since the bodies of the two victims aged 32 and 55 were discovered.
Only one sign appeared: his motorcycle was found in Spain, near Jaca, 2h30 drive from Pouyastruc. The vehicle was discovered on the side of a road, in a mountainous region of the border country. Thus, research is articulated on both sides of the Pyrenees. A telephone contact had been established between the authorities and the fugitive, but it was quickly cut off, making it impossible to shed light on his intentions. “We do not know his current wishes. Is he someone who is suicidal or are we dealing with someone who wants to escape his responsibilities? For the moment, we ignore”, said Pierre Aurignac, public prosecutor of Tarbes. Unknown to justice, like his two victims – both teachers in the same college in Tarbes -, the main defendant seems, in view of the first elements, to have acted out of revenge and jealousy.
A judicial investigation for “assassination” is opened by the public prosecutor’s office of Pau, to which the case has been transferred. “We tend to think that he had prepared the facts, this is the reason why the qualification that we retain for the moment is the assassination”, justified the prosecutor of Tarbes, who was charged to coordinate the first investigations.
Monday July 4, 2022, two teachers, a man and a woman, were found dead at the home of the first, both shot dead, in the small town of Pouyastruc (Hautes-Pyrénées), located northeast of Tarbes. The drama would have been tied between 6:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. when an individual, on a motorcycle, burst in to shoot these two teachers. A crime discovered by neighbors who quickly gave the alert, after noticing suspicious comings and goings. The suspect managed to escape. A judicial investigation for “assassination” has been opened by the Pau prosecutor’s office.
The two victims discovered are two teachers from the same establishment, the Desaix college in Tarbes, the prefecture of the Hautes-Pyrénées. He is a 55-year-old man, who was a PE teacher, also a former bobsleigh champion who participated in two editions of the Olympic Games, in 1992 and 1994. He was particularly known and appreciated in the region. The second is a woman, aged 32, mother of two children, aged 3 and 5, and a French teacher. “The two victims had become romantically close for a few weeks as part of a school trip,” said the public prosecutor of Tarbes.
The main suspect is Cédric Tauleygne, a 34-year-old man, born August 18, 1987. He is the ex-spouse of the French teacher. He is also the father of two children. The couple were going through a divorce. The thirty-something, worker, is a former reservist of the gendarmerie and the 35th Parachute Artillery Regiment of Tarbes. “He is someone who knows the weapons” according to the magistrate.
This double homicide of teachers is reminiscent of the appalling assassination of Samuel Paty, history and geography teachers, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), by an Islamist terrorist on October 16, 2020. But if the murder perpetrated almost two years ago was linked to motivations which made it possible to affirm that it was an attack, the drama of Pouyastruc is truly quite different. The public prosecutor of Tarbes, Pierre Aurignac, evoked “the track of a dispute around private relations.”