Émile Louis

Émile Louis (January 21, 1934 – October 20, 2013) was a French bus driver and the prime suspect in the disappearance of seven young women in the département of Yonne, Burgundy, in the late 1970s. In 2000 Louis confessed to their murders; he retracted this confession one month later.

Disappearances

Louis was a prime suspect in the disappearances in the Yonne Département of seven young women with mild mental deficiencies between 1975 and 1980. The disappearances initially did not attract much attention, as the girls had no close relatives and lived in homes for the handicapped; it was assumed that they had simply run away. A local detective, Christian Jambert, looked into the possible crimes as early as 1981. However, his reports were ignored, and he later died under mysterious circumstances.

In 1992, Pierre Charrier, the head of the Yonne APAJH association managing the home for handicapped young people where the missing girls had been staying, was sentenced to six years in prison for raping a 23-year-old handicapped woman.

In 2000, Louis confessed to two of the murders, and gave information as to where the bodies could be found, which police were able to use to recover the bodies from shallow graves. He later retracted his confession, but was convicted of the seven murders in November 2004, and sentenced to life in prison.

Death

Louis died on 20 October 2013. In the newspaper it was mentioned that he died in a secure hospital aged 79.

External links

• BBC News: French 'serial killer' on trial
• Guardian: Murder trial likely to reveal cover-ups
• Detailed chronology (in French)