LUCAS L. The investigation into the murder of Justine Vayrac continues, while the main suspect has confessed to killing the victim. Even if he is still in pre-trial detention, Lucas L. has still not explained the reasons for his act.
[Mis à jour le 29 octobre 2022 à 20h33] Lucas L., the main suspect in the murder of Justine Vayrac, confessed to killing the 20-year-old mother. However, the motive for the crime has yet to be determined, and investigators are continuing investigations in this direction. It is thanks to the testimony of Théo, a friend of Justine, that Lucas L. was able to be identified and geolocated. Indeed, during the evening, Justine did not feel well, Theo drives her to his car, accompanied by Lucas L. Before returning to the nightclub, Theo will take Lucas’ number, because he has a bad presentiment, he tells the Parisian. Indeed, during the evening, Justine had confided that she was convinced that he had “put something in his glass”. Theo thinks Lucas L. is going to hurt him.
He contacted the young man for the first time: “He said to me: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it, come back in an hour!'”, he says. Relaunched several times, the suspect explains to Theo that he is not with Justine, but with another woman, who later confirmed his statements. Worried, Justine’s friend chases him up again. Lucas L. ends up texting her back: “I have better things to do than think about your drunk buddy.”
After being arrested and indicted, Lucas L. confessed to the murder of Justine, Thursday, October 27. He therefore slept in prison, after being placed in pre-trial detention, as indicated by the public prosecutor of Limoges during a press conference. Baptiste Porcher also detailed the charges against the main suspect: “rape”, “restriction without voluntary release before the seventh day”, and “murder preceded, accompanied or followed by another crime”.
If he ended up cracking under the pressure of the investigators who confronted him with the many elements incriminating him, Lucas L. has, for the time being, still not explained what really happened to his home, not giving the reasons for his acting out. The two young people would have had “consented” sexual intercourse, according to the respondent, before the situation got out of hand, for a reason still unknown to the investigators. However, he admitted to having punched him, which would have resulted in his death. The suspect’s assertions about the circumstances of Justine Vayrac’s death go against those of the public prosecutor of Limoges, who indicated that the examinations show “a plurality of blows, one of which was carried out with a blunt weapon”.
This Friday, October 28, the suspect’s lawyer said, during an interview on franceinfo, that “this drama which devastated the families occurred at the end of the discotheque and against a background of alcohol”. Me Michel Labrousse also affirmed that “nothing could suggest” that his client “could commit the act for which he is accused”. He assured that the suspect is “a normally constituted individual”, with a “completely normal, balanced profile”. “He is a young man from a good family, educated, intelligent, who practices a sport, who has a normal sentimental life”, detailed the lawyer. “We will need to know if at the psychological, psychiatric level, his acting out has technical explanations,” he added.
What did Lucas L. admit to the investigators?
Baptiste Porcher, the public prosecutor of Limoges, provided details on the revelations of Lucas L., main suspect in the Justine Vayrac case, to the investigators. He explained Thursday, October 27 that the man had confessed, a few hours before the end of his police custody, that he had killed the 20-year-old young woman. Lucas L. also told investigators that the murder took place at his home after they had consensual sex. The 21-year-old young man, a farm worker, would then have buried the body of Justine Vayrac using an agricultural machine.
The public prosecutor also indicated that, according to the suspect, the young woman would have died as a result of “a punch”. However, Baptiste Porcher specified that the examinations show “a plurality of blows, including one carried out with a contending weapon”, which contradicts the version of Lucas L. “Other examinations must make it possible to confirm the identity of the body, the cause of death and the nature of the violence suffered, but also the presence of foreign substances in the victim’s blood,” added the prosecutor. It should be noted that Lucas L. only confessed after being confronted with several clues, namely “the victim’s bag, found burnt near his home, the hearing of the witness who heard the telephone ring in the car, the bloodstains in the vehicle, the poorly cleaned ones at her home, and the fact that he was the last person to see her alive.”
A “bloody and sensitive” farmer living south of Brive
According to the elements released in the press, Lucas L. is an agricultural worker, based in Beynat (Corrèze), south-east of Brive, the village in which he grew up, describes Le Figaro. Le Parisien even specifies that he works on a farm breeding Limousin cows. A young party man, he had had to deal with the justice system, pinned down in a story of a fire started in an agricultural shed, reports La Dépêche. While described in the local newspaper as “a person who has always behaved well”, this member of the local football club is also known to be “turbulent”, with “a fairly chaotic school career”, according to comments also published by La Dépêche. “I am not surprised to know that he is a suspect in the case of Justine’s disappearance. He is a young person who is both bloody and sensitive, who is on edge,” a relative even told the media. .
The mayor of Beynat, where the suspect is from, said Thursday, October 27, knowing the suspect and his parents: “It is a family that is very well known to Beynat, whose grandfather had been deputy to the It’s a family that is very involved in community life, in football.” Jean-Michel Monteil clarified that Lucas L. was on the town’s festival committee, describing a person “who was always voluntary”. However, he indicated that the suspect was “turbulent at school”, but qualified: “We had never had any problems with him.” “I can’t help but think of the parents of the indicted. I imagine their dismay and their amazement”, continued the city councilor.
The suspect’s lawyer, who spoke on franceinfo Friday October 28, declared that his client is “a normally constituted individual” whose profile is “completely normal, balanced”. “He is a young man from a good family, educated, intelligent, who practices a sport, who has a normal sentimental life”, specified Me Michel Labrousse before adding: “We will have to know if at the psychological, psychiatric, if his acting out has technical explanations.”
How is the suspect described by those around him?
In Beynat, where the suspect resides, it is the most total incomprehension. The people met by certain journalists expressed their amazement on hearing the news, all the more so in view of the respondent. “He is a person who has always behaved well” affirmed to BFM-TV Dimitri, employee in a restaurant where the suspect went. A resident, close to the individual, speaks of a “young man so nice”. One of the members of the village football club, questioned by The Parisianeven presents him as “someone cool and quiet with a festive spirit. He may have done some teenage bullshit but nothing too bad.”
What is the link between Lucas L. and Justine Vayrac?
But what link unites this individual and Justine Vayrac, who lives in Tauriac, in the Lot, 35km south of the village of the man placed in police custody? According to the public prosecutor of Brive, the main suspect “would be a friendly acquaintance met a few times in the nightclub.” Their link seems, in view of the information communicated at this stage, to stop there, especially since the young woman of 20 years is in a relationship and the mother of a little boy of two and a half years.
CNews collected the testimony of a friend of Justine Vayrac, this Friday, October 28. The man who presents himself as Vincent said that during the night at the disco before the 20-year-old’s murder, the latter allegedly “thought her glass of champagne tasted weird”, and that , “not feeling well”, she would have “asked to leave” the nightclub. Vincent then explained that on leaving the nightclub, Justine Vayrac would have gone to her car accompanied by Théo, another friend, and Lucas L. The latter would have offered to accompany the young woman. “At one point, Lucas told Theo to come home to enjoy his evening, that he wanted to sleep, like Justine”, detailed Vincent.
Still according to the testimony of Vincent collected by CNews, Theo would have noticed later that Justine’s car was still parked in the parking lot of the nightclub, but that neither Lucas L. nor Justine were there. He would then have decided to call the suspect, and would have managed to contact him. Lucas L. would have told her that Justine had left “with a certain Noé”, according to Vincent. The latter explains that this conversation would have surprised Justine’s friends, because they “did not know any Noah in his entourage”.
Why did Lucas L. immediately become the prime suspect?
Very quickly, the whole investigation turned to Lucas L. Indeed, he was presented to the investigators as the last person to have seen Justine before her disappearance. Sunday, around 4 a.m., she had left the disco, drunk and accompanied by a friend, who entrusted her to this man. Whether the respondent had indicated to the investigators that he had dropped her off in an industrial area where she was to be taken care of by another person, nothing came to confirm his thesis.
Suspicions had also been reinforced with regard to the testimony of another young woman, whom the man would have driven, later, also with his vehicle. She told investigators she heard a cell phone ringing in the car, which did not belong to the driver. She had also reported an unusual withdrawn behavior of the man when they were together.
Other elements quickly tightened the noose around the young man. Tuesday, October 24, 2022, in the morning, when the police came to arrest him at his home, he was trying to flee before being caught by the police. During the inspection of his place of residence, traces of blood were discovered in his room assures BFM TV, just like in his car, on the gear knob and the handbrake. On his side, franceinfo added that a shoe which could belong to the disappeared was also discovered in the vehicle. What to support the suspicions.