A second suspect in the Leslie and Kevin case was taken into custody on Wednesday March 1. At the same time, Tom T. mentioned a link between the disappearance of the couple and drug trafficking, a track followed by the investigators.
The investigation into the Leslie and Kevin affair seems to be unblocking. A second man was arrested and taken into police custody on Wednesday March 1, 2023, the day after the arrest of a first suspect, Tom T., according to information from the Parisian. A new interview sequence will begin with the new suspect individual, but after a day in police custody, the investigators obtained details from Tom T., the friend who lent his home to the couple the night when this last has vanished.
The first suspect would have made “disturbing statements” during his hearing, denying any role in the disappearance of Leslie and Kevin but claiming to have information on the crime which would be linked to drug trafficking, according to him. He would also have mentioned other suspects involved in the case. The investigators who were already considering this track verify the statements of the young man of 22 years.
Tom T. is the first individual arrested in three months of investigation. Arrested on the morning of February 28 in Vendée, he is heard by the gendarmes of Niort and should be transferred to Poitiers (Charente) at the end of his police custody, Thursday morning. He could be brought before the investigating judge in charge of the judicial investigation opened for “arrest, kidnapping, detention or kidnapping”. The suspect risks being indicted and, perhaps, remanded in custody according to Le Parisien.
The Parisian returned in detail to the evening of the disappearance of Leslie and Kevin, that of November 25 to 26, 2022. Then in a relationship for less than a month, the two young people are invited to an evening “blanquette de veau” at Nicolas R ., a longtime friend of Kevin’s father, Guy Trompat. Before going to dinner, around 5:30 p.m., they both have an aperitif at the home of Tom T., a friend of the couple who is hosting them for the night. They go to Nicolas at around 7 p.m. to taste a veal blanquette in the company of the host of the place and another guest. The latter would have left the household around midnight. Leslie and Kevin, meanwhile, would have left around 3 a.m. after a ballet of back and forth.
Who is the suspect arrested in the case of Leslie and Kevin?
The suspect arrested and placed in police custody on February 28 is a friend who was part of “the close entourage of Leslie and Kevin”, a certain Tom T.. It is also at his home in Prahecq (Deux- Sèvres) that the lovebirds had to sleep on the evening of their disappearance. The 22-year-old was cited several times in the investigation into the lovers’ disappearance before being described as the last individual to hear from Leslie through messages. As a close friend, he also participated in the hunts for Leslie and Kevin. Since the placement under seal of his accommodation in Prahecq, the suspect has moved in with his father in Vendée, the department in which he was arrested.
Tom T. presents a suspicious profile for the gendarmes who must determine his schedule on the evening of the disappearance. The respondent claims to have spent the night of November 25 to 26 and the following night in techno at La Crèche and Parthenay before being admitted to hospital because of a blood clot. But investigators learned during the investigation that during the evening of the tragedy, the suspect was in contact with Leslie and Kevin. Likewise, his version with the media has evolved.
The suspect’s involvement in the disappearance of Leslie and Kevin has not yet been proven, but the gendarmes are following two leads according to the details of the Parisian. One sentimental since Tom T. admitted to having had romantic feelings for Leslie and that a possible jealousy towards Kevin could be a motive, the other linked to drug trafficking in which Tom T. and Kevin could have soaked.
Tom T., last person to have heard from Leslie and Kevin
Leslie and Kevin would have left the “blanquette de veau” evening around 3 a.m. and only had a few dozen meters to go to reach their one-night accommodation at Tom T’s. was not at the scene but was the last to hear from the missing couple. Throughout the evening the suspect and the young woman exchanged messages and Leslie’s last known text message, disturbing to say the least, was sent to Tom T. at 2:53 a.m.: “I just threw up my guts, full of blood As soon as I get home, I ask myself, I’m not very well there”.
Tom T’s last text messages sent between 3 and 4 a.m. then went unanswered. But the honesty of the suspect on the question of the messages questions, in particular the parents of Leslie. If they have never laid formal charges, Leslie’s father and mother-in-law remain convinced that the suspect still has things to confide: “Tom has changed his version several times. Several people have seen it well in Parthenay on the evening of Saturday November 26. But no witness has ever confirmed his apero-sound organized at La Crèche, in Deux-Sèvres, the night of Leslie’s disappearance. And the parents add to the Parisian : “He ended up sending us the texts he had exchanged with Leslie the night of his disappearance but some were truncated. We were never able to get the rest. […] We are convinced that he has things to say, and that he hides them. He is still the one who took in our children.
Text messages and a visit from Tom T
In addition to the messages, Tom T. was also in the presence of Leslie and Kevin on the evening of November 25 to 26, 2022 since he went to dinner at Nicolas R. The youngster admitted to having seen the couple before he goes to the meal around 5:30 p.m., but according to information from The Noon Dispatch, Tom T. would also have joined the couple at Nicolas R. in the middle of the evening, between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., when only Leslie was missing because he was visiting his friend Jérémy. Once gone and later in the evening, Tom T. would have sought to know what time the couple intended to leave the home of Nicolas R. An approach that the young man justified by “the desire to give them a little kiss before their departure the next morning”.
The Round Trips and Leslie and Kevin the Night They Disappeared
During the evening, Leslie, Kevin and their loved ones have multiplied the trips and the meetings. According to the chronology established by the investigators, the couple and their friend Nicolas R. were joined by the companion of Kevin’s father who came to bring 5,000 euros in cash to his stepson, at the request of the latter. The last elements rather evoke a sum close to 10,000 euros. She would have arrived around 8:30 p.m. and would have stayed with Nicolas R. for two hours. During this time, Kevin would have left the house, alone, for fifteen minutes in order to go to an appointment in the village with a man who sold a second-hand car. Kevin would have justified by this appointment the fact of asking this substantial sum of money to his mother-in-law. Kevin’s father claims to have had his son on the phone during this time, and explains that Kevin would have indicated to him, while he was walking, that there were “five suspicious people” in a white car.
For her part, Leslie would have left the small group around 9:30 p.m. to go to Jérémy, a 30-year-old friend who had already hosted her in his home located in Aigondigné. Leslie and Jérémy would have spent two hours talking, and the young woman would then have left to find Kevin in Prahecq, at Nicolas R.. The group would then have started having dinner.
Drug trafficking mixed with the disappearance of Leslie and Kevin?
What was the large sum of money that Kevin had in his possession supposed to be used for? According to the father and mother-in-law of the young man, the 10,000 were to allow the purchase of a car, a transaction which would have been organized on the night of November 25 to 26, 2022. Disturbing facts, Kevin does not have the license and none of Leslie’s friends seem to be aware of this purchase project, like Cassandra, a friend of the deceased who testified to near TF1 : “I was not aware of a car purchase. These stories of money, it’s still quite suspicious.”
The shadow of a deal deal could surround the thesis of buying a car. As reported by Kevin’s father, Guy Trompat, the young man would have seen and was worried by “five suspicious people” during the evening. “Before he disappeared, Kevin felt he was being watched by five guys in a white car. Five people he didn’t know. Someone was after the boy for his money. But Kevin doesn’t deal, he only buys for his personal consumption”, added the father at the microphone of TF1. Near RTLKevin’s father assured that after this meeting related to the sale of this used car, his son was different, “stressed” and “upset”.
On the question of a possible deal, Cassandra is categorical: Leslie was not steeped in this world. “I know very well that Leslie was not dealing drugs, I know that it was not towards her that there was a concern. It does not come from her in any case”, she judged.
Did Leslie and Kevin run away to Portugal?
Since the disturbing disappearance of Leslie and Kevin, several hypotheses have emerged as to their disappearance. There are rumors of a leak in Portugal. A runaway categorically rejected by Leslie’s parents: “In Portugal, in a cart without a license, we found it so big…” they rejected with The New Republic. For them, it is only a diversion to cover up a criminal case. Leslie wouldn’t have “Never did that to her dad, she would never have done that to her brother. She even asked us so that Kevin could come over Christmas.”
“It feels like they’re trying to take us somewhere else,” Leslie’s family suspected on RTL. “If we want to make evidence disappear, like clothes, we put them in a garbage bag. While there they were dumped with no bags, nothing, loose. It was made so that we find them in this place, with, at least, an identity paper which put the chip in the ear and that the gendarmes were immediately warned” they revealed to the media .
A friend of Leslie revealed that it had already happened to her friend that she went on an excursion some day but she always gave news to her relatives. “She always sent a message, at least, to her parents or one of us. She would never have abandoned her father, her twin brother or her friends!” added her friend to the daily.
Personal effects of Leslie and Kevin found
After the opening of the “disturbing disappearance” investigation by the Niort public prosecutor’s office on December 3, following the report of Leslie’s family, the city public prosecutor’s office relinquished the case on December 27 to entrust it at the criminal investigation center of Poitiers (Vienne), as reported The Parisian. The criminal track is therefore now privileged, with the opening of a judicial investigation for “arrest, kidnapping, detention or forcible confinement”.
Since the disappearance, investigators have not found traces of Leslie and Kevin, but personal effects were discovered on December 8 in a container in Puyravault (Charente-Maritime), near where Leslie lived. These are three pairs of shoes, a toiletry bag, a hairbrush and paint-stained clothes that belonged to the young woman, who was a painter. In addition, two sweatshirts, a wallet, a road safety certificate in Kevin’s name and two shotgun cartridges were discovered.
Leslie’s parents do not believe in the theory of a voluntary departure as they indicated to the ParisianJanuary 26, 2023: “Leslie could not have disappeared voluntarily, she may be kidnapped, held against her will, collateral victim of a situation that completely escapes her…”