DNA records confirm on March 9 that the two bodies found in Charente-Maritime are those of Leslie and Kevin, who have been missing for three months. Investigators have yet to discover the motives of the three suspects. Two tracks are clear.
Leslie Hoorelbeke and Kévin Trompat have indeed been murdered. If there was no longer any doubt about the identity of the two bodies found on March 3 and 4 in Puyravault and Virson (Charente-Maritime), the DNA records confirm this Thursday March 9 that the remains are those of the lovers 22 and 21 years old. Two days earlier, characteristic tattoos and the first results of the autopsies had enabled the public prosecutor of Poitiers, Cyril Lacombe, to affirm that they are the couple who disappeared on the night of November 25 to 26, 2022, in Prahecq , near Niort (Deux-Sèvres).
According to the results of the autopsies, Leslie and Kevin “would have died as a result of blows with a blunt object”, said the district attorney, but the examinations have yet to determine the date of death. If the investigators believe that the facts took place in a “reduced time frame”, we must not rule out a possible kidnapping of the couple during the three months of the investigation. Note that the bodies of young adults were found dressed and without any trace of sexual abuse.
If the fate of Leslie and Kevin is sealed, the investigation into this case continues because many gray areas persist, starting with the motive of the attackers. Three suspects were indicted, two of them for “assassination” between March 2 and 4. It was also the arrest and the statements of the first suspect, Tom T., the friend who was to accommodate the couple on the evening of his disappearance, which made it possible to arrest the other two suspects. If Leslie and Kevin’s relative could have been motivated by his romantic feelings for the young woman and jealousy towards Kevin, for the other two suspects it is the trail of drug trafficking and financial debt that seems most likely.
Le Parisien 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 a “blanquette de veau” evening 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 enjoy a veal blanquette with the host of the place and another guest. The latter would have left the household around midnight. Leslie and Kevin would have left around 3 a.m. after a ballet of back and forth.
If three people – Tom Trouillet, Nathan B. and Enzo C. – were indicted, all would not have played the same role in this affair and they could have been motivated by different reasons. Tom Trouillet, a close friend of Leslie and Kevin and the first suspect arrested, seems to have mainly served to provide information on the course of the evening of the couple to the attackers. The young man exchanged with the young woman throughout the evening, being the last person to have been in contact with Leslie, in addition to having joined the lovers at Nicolas R. during dinner. As for the mobile of the young man, the investigators are still considering the sentimental track. Tom Trouillet would have played the matchmaker in spite of himself between Leslie and Kevin, who had become a couple only three weeks before their disappearance, even though he had feelings of love but not reciprocated for Leslie. A certain jealousy towards Kevin, would it have pushed Tom to want to get rid of him?
The other two suspects, present in Prahecq on the night of November 25 to 26, could be the attackers of Leslie and Kevin according to the investigators. Guided by Tom Trouillet, they would have seized the moment to attack the couple, or rather Kevin. The young man was known as a cocaine trafficker in electro parties and the attackers, including Nathan B. who is known to the police for drug cases, could have contracted financial debts with the dealer. It remains to be seen if the suspects intentionally wanted to kill the couple or if it was intimidation gone wrong? One thing, however, is certain for the police: Leslie would be a collateral victim.
Tom Trouillet, indicted and imprisoned on March 2 “kidnapping and forcible confinement”, is a friend who was part of “the close entourage of Leslie and Kevin”. 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 has been named multiple times in the lovers’ disappearance investigation as the last individual to hear from Leslie through text 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.
Suspect, the young man gave different versions of his schedule for the evening of November 25 to 26, but the investigators finally discovered that Tom had contact by message and in the presence of the couple, during dinner at Nicolas R. He wouldn’t have joined electro parties until later. A cocaine trafficker in the circle of partygoers, like Kevin, Tom could have been jealous of his friend because he was in love with Leslie.
Nathan B. is the second man indicted on Friday March 3 in the Kevin and Leslie disappearance case. Also placed in pre-trial detention, he is being prosecuted for murder, kidnapping and forcible confinement without voluntary release before the seventh day and modification of the inventory of a crime to obstruct the manifestation of the truth.
Arrested on March 1 in Puyravault, near La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime), the 22-year-old young man is described on the “margin” by neighbors with Sud-Ouest and works in the family business. “He had already had problems with the gendarmerie for cases related to drugs”, specifies a neighbor of the family. During the arrest, the converted truck in which the young man lived was searched. The suspect had moved into his parents’ garden, just a few hundred meters from the Le Relais container where Leslie and Kevin’s personal effects were found. The suspect may be one of the couple’s attackers and may have disposed of the cases found on December 8.
On March 2, a third suspect was arrested and taken into custody in the case of the disappearance of Leslie and Kevin before being indicted on March 4 for murder, modifying a crime scene to obstruct to the manifestation of the truth, and kidnapping and sequestration without voluntary release before the 7th day. Named Enzo C. and 23 years old, he would be “in connection with Tom Trouille” according to the public prosecutor. The young man has a clean criminal record but could have exhibited disruptive, “rowdy” behavior, according to testimony from Sud-Ouest. He grew up in Surgères (Charente-Maritime) barely ten kilometers from the places where the bodies of Leslie and Kevin were found.
The death of Leslie and Kevin would be partly linked to “a dispute over narcotics” according to the statements made by the suspect Tom Trouillet while in police custody and reported by Le Parisien. The track becomes clearer. Kevin would have been known as a trafficker and the suspects could have had financial debts in connection with the purchase of drugs.
The drug trade, however, would only concern Kevin. Cassandra, a friend of Leslie who testified to TF1 was adamant: Leslie was not part of 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.
The trail of drug trafficking was considered before Tom’s statements because of the 10,000 euros that Kevin had on him the evening of his disappearance, an amount that his mother-in-law had brought him to buy a car. , according to her. But Kevin not having the license the explanation was flawed. This transaction may actually relate to drug trafficking. 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 watched by five guys he didn’t know in a white car. Someone was after the boy for his money. But Kevin doesn’t deal, he only buys for his consumption. personal”, added the father to the microphone of TF1. To RTL, Kevin’s father assured that after this meeting related to the sale of this used car, his son was different, “stressed” and “upset”.
During the evening, Leslie, Kevin and their relatives multiplied the trips and meetings. According to the chronology established by the investigators, the couple and their friend Nicolas R. were joined by the partner of Kevin’s father who came to bring 5,000 euros in cash to his son-in-law, at the latter’s request. The last elements rather evoke a sum close to 10,000 euros. She reportedly arrived around 8:30 p.m. and 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 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.
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 by Le Parisien. 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 any trace 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 Le Parisien on January 26, 2023: “Leslie could not disappear voluntarily, she may be kidnapped, retained against her will, collateral victim of a situation that completely escapes him…”
