When Antoine Marchal’s brother contacted the police on September 9, 2020, he had just made a macabre discovery. While we had had no news for several days of the man nicknamed “Tarzan”, his brother managed to enter the sixty-year-old’s home, in Trieux, in Bomal (Durbuy). A house where there was a bad smell and where there were traces of blood.
The body of Antoine Marchal, 61, was upstairs. A medical examiner immediately judge the death suspicious. The death dated back several days. Suspicions of blows were also quickly issued.
A lead will quickly guide the investigation towards Mélissa Sauvage, one of Antoine Marchal’s daughters, living in the Liège region.
The facts qualified as murder to facilitate the theft will be tried next week before the Assize Court of Luxembourg in Arlon. The jury will be constituted this Wednesday.
At the heart of the case, we find a conflictual relationship between father and daughter. The telephone showed that Mélissa Sauvage and Antoine Marchal were in contact until August 31, 2020, a few days before the macabre discovery,
The vehicle had disappeared
Another disturbing fact, the car of the sexagenarian, a VW Touareg, was no longer in Bomal. After the discovery of the body of “Tarzan”, a call for witnesses had also been broadcast concerning the disappearance of this vehicle. The day after this broadcast, Mélissa Sauvage went to the Seraing police to declare that she had bought the car from her father.
The investigation will therefore very quickly focus on the victim’s daughter but also on her entourage in Liège, including Renaud Dessart – with whom she was in a relationship – and Fabrice Duchesne, an acquaintance whom she was then hosting.
Throughout the investigations, a scenario will be established by the elements of the investigation, attesting to the presence of the trio in Bomal, at the home of Antoine Marchal, on August 31, 2020.
From her first auditions Mélissa Sauvage will evoke an element at the heart of the file. Namely suspicions of rape by his father on one of his other daughters, then 13 years old. Suspicions echoing a situation that Mélissa Sauvage also says she experienced when she was younger.
During the investigation, Mélissa Sauvage, Renaud Dessart and Fabrice Duchesne will admit to having gone to Bomal on August 31, 2020 in the evening. Mélissa Sauvage will end up explaining that she went to her father, with the two other protagonists, to make him confess to raping his younger sister.
A suspected plan
The plan is also to take the car, a mobile phone and any other evidence that could incriminate him, including a PC. It had even been planned to imagine a fake sales invoice for Antoine Marchal’s VW Touareg. According to Mélissa, the tone rose between her and her father. Renaud Dessart and Fabrice Duchesne, still according to his explanations, intervened and fought with Antoine Marchal who under duress signed an alleged sales invoice for his car. The file mentions the use of links and telephones taken away to prevent him from giving the alert.
The trio would have returned to the site the next day to notably bring back a television taken away the day before. According to the explanations of Mélissa Sauvage, her father was no longer in the living room where he had been left on the ground, but upstairs (read below).
Facing the investigators, Fabrice Duchesne will recognize his presence on the scene while refuting having struck blows and explaining that he wanted to separate Renaud Dessart and Antoine Marchal.
Finally Renaud Dessart will also end up delivering explanations. While he had up until then asserted his right to silence, questioned by Arlon police officers about a fight that took place in Arlon prison where he was placed in preventive detention, he confessed to them about Antoine Marchal: “I kicked him and he died… I screwed up, I have to take responsibility and pay my debts to society.”
Reheard by the investigators, he will admit to having been present on August 31 at Antoine Marchal’s house, explaining his actions by the fact that he would have “saw red“, but also involving Fabrice Duchesne who, according to his explanations, actively participated in the beating.
Abuses never substantiated
The three accused, Mélissa Sauvage (34), Renaud Dessart (42), Fabrice Duschesne (also 42) will be tried as co-authors.
It should be noted that if suspicions of acts of morals were directed towards Antoine Marchal, by Mélissa Sauvage, no complaint has ever led to a referral of the victim to court for such acts.
Death probably from intracranial hemorrhage
The state of Antoine Marchal’s house, in which the investigators discovered him, could suggest that he had been hit while he was on the ground in the living room, given the presence of blood. Investigators have also deduced that the victim or another person carrying blood moved in the kitchen and the bathroom upstairs.
Note that the body of the sexagenarian was found upstairs, and not in the living room, several days after the death. A body that was already in a state of putrefaction. The face showed traumatic lesions.
The medical examiner believes that the cause “probable” of death is a “right hemispheric intracranial haemorrhage, consecutive to one or more cranial traumas”.
Regarding the lapse of time between the injuries inflicted on Antoine Marchal and his death, the medical examiner cannot establish it with certainty. On the other hand, theoretically, according to the expert, it takes at least a few minutes and at most 24 hours for such injuries to potentially lead to death.
The defendants explain that they returned to Bomal the next day, September 1, 2020, early in the morning. According to them, Antoine Marchal was upstairs, and he was snoring. Statements also subject to the expertise of the medical examiner. And according to him, this explanation of snoring heard, around 6 a.m., is compatible with the forensic conclusions.
A 4th accused will only have to answer for concealment
If Mélissa Sauvage, Renaud Dessart, Fabrice Duschesne will together have to answer for the murder of Antoine Marchal, a fourth defendant will also be tried before the Assize Court. This 4th accused half-brother of Fabrice Duschesne is the subject of a charge of concealment, in this case for having taken possession of a GPS belonging to Antoine Marchal knowing that it had been stolen. Secondary facts. But the latter accused could also provide explanations on the context since he frequented the trio.
More than two weeks of trial and a dozen lawyers
This assize trial will be chaired by Hugues Marchal, counselor at the Liège Court of Appeal, assisted by Anne Wiliquet and Anne Becker, judges at the Luxembourg Court of First Instance.
Prosecutor Murielle Seret will assume the function of general counsel to support the accusation.
A dozen lawyers will intervene at the trial. Mélissa Sauvage will be defended by Mes Dimitri De Coster and Loïc Richard; Renaud Dessart by My Dorothée Kauten and Joëlle Saussez; Fabrice Duchesne by Me Luc Balaes and Romane Focant and finally the last accused, to answer for concealment, by Me Colin Gilissen.
The civil parties will be assisted by Me Audrey Lamy, Alexandre Wilmotte, Philippe Zevenne, Laurent Pacolet, Julie Coste.
Given the number of witnesses summoned and the number of parties, the trial could be held until the week of March 27.