Overview
- Police extracted Jérôme Barella from Mont-de-Marsan prison on Monday to attend a search of his Montestruc-sur-Gers home where access was blocked and about 130 gendarmes were deployed.
- Investigators say the autopsy found that 11-year-old Lyhanna was raped but did not determine the cause of death with certainty, a finding the Agen prosecutor confirmed.
- Barella is formally under judicial investigation (mis en examen) and in pretrial detention, and his case record includes several prior complaints and reports that were not previously followed by justice authorities.
- On June 18 Barella’s wife filed a complaint for rape and domestic violence and was questioned by the Toulouse gendarmerie research section, a development that has been integrated into the ongoing inquiry.
- The case has prompted the Justice Ministry to order prosecutors to reexamine child-related complaints by mid-July and to speed up changes to child-protection law, a move that could lead to wider reviews of how earlier reports were handled.