Overview
- Prosecutors and a jury in Nantes will open the trial Tuesday, with Ney charged with abduction and murder and facing life in prison if convicted.
- Jonathan Coulom, 10, vanished during a school trip in April 2004, and his body was found six weeks later in a Guérande pond with his hands and feet bound and a cinder block weighing him down.
- Ney, a 55-year-old German already serving life sentences for three child murders in Germany, denies killing Jonathan and says he was not in France at the time.
- Investigators point to a 2004 forum post tying the crime to the “man in black,” a nickname Ney later admitted coining, as well as a former cellmate’s claimed confession account and a witness who reported a German-plated car near the scene.
- French judges placed Ney under formal investigation after a 2021 transfer under a European arrest warrant, and the court plans about 13 days of hearings with roughly 20 French and German witnesses as the family hopes for long-sought answers.