On 25 April 2023, the lifeless body of a five-year-old girl was discovered in a plastic bag inside the building where a fifteen-year-old teenager lived at the time

On Wednesday 12 June, the teenager, now aged sixteen, was sentenced to the maximum penalty of twenty years’ imprisonment for the murder of little Rose in Rambervillers, Vosges. He was also sentenced to twenty years of socio-judicial supervision, the maximum duration for a minor, with a ban on contact with minors and on travelling to the Vosges, and an obligation to undergo treatment.

The decision, in line with the prosecutor’s submissions, was announced by the presiding judge after an hour’s deliberation. The teenager, impassive, acquiesced to the president’s question about his understanding of the sentence.

“The seriousness and atrocity of these acts fully justify this sentence”, said Virginie Barbosa, lawyer for the association La Voix de l’Enfant, following the verdict. She expressed doubts about the young man’s chances of rehabilitation, pointing out that his personality was considered “worrying” and comparable to that of Francis Heaulme, a serial killer.

The psychiatric reports presented during the proceedings were described as “catastrophic” and “worrying” by Stéphane Giuranna, lawyer for the girl’s parents, who emphasised the risk of recidivism unanimously mentioned by the experts.

The young man had already been convicted in March of rape and sexual assault of two boys aged eleven and twelve, and was the subject of a rape complaint in another case, all dating from February 2022, a year before Rose’s murder.

“The sexual dimension of his acts is an important facet of his personality”, concluded Mr Barbosa

The case also raised questions about possible “dysfunctions” in the follow-up of the minor, who was placed in a closed educational centre in 2022 before being returned to his parents, a transition considered critical by the lawyers.

The teenager admitted to luring the girl to his home on the pretext of showing her a kitten before killing her. His DNA was found on the victim’s clothes, corroborating his confession to the sexual nature of his crime.