BORDEAUX, (AFP) - - An American internet site has given a face to an unidentified body that nobody has claimed, found in the Dordogne, some kilometers from Libourne (Gironde), which the Bordeaux police has tried to identify for ten years.
An appeal from the french police force, broadcasted on Monday, shows a sketch of a calm face with black curly hair
(www.gendarmerie.defense.gouv.fr).
This sketch, posted in the post offices and the French police departments, was made by an American artist contacted through a site for missing persons (www.doenetwork.org).
A first one in France in the investigation, this maybe will tell who this young man was, 18 to 25 years old and of European type, killed by two knife wounds and abandoned nude in a river with bound feet and hands.
A mystery that haunts the officer Jocelyn Brault, a police officer in Bordeaux, in charge of the case after the discovery of the body on November 16, 1995.
"For two years we did researches in all directions, we checked files of missing persons in all areas, we had several hypotheses... without result", the police officer says.
Evidence are few, the body did not have any special signs, nor any tattoos, he was of average height, with perfect teeth. To complicate things, two weeks in water made the face unrecognizable
The criminal research institute of the national french police force (IRCGN) in Rosny-under-Drinks, did a first clay reconstruction of the face that wasn't satisfactory. Jocelyn Brault and her colleagues explored all leads, especially that he may be a foreign agricultural worker: the body had around the wrists and ankles the iron wire used for palissage of vines.
Not obtaining any result, the police even launched an appeal in a successful TV-show at the time. (Witness number one).
As the investigation was dormant for 7 years, officer Brault checked missing persons sites. She discovered that an internet site offers to make facial reconstructions. She sent photos of the body and two days later received the sketch. She decided then to relaunch the investigation.
"Even ten years after, I hope to touch someone in his family, or someone that he met. That is why we launched this appeal in grape-harvest period", explains Officer Brault thinking that this new portrait is realistic and may lead to witnesess.
As it is, the police of Bordeaux already envision to call again to the designers of the American site for other files of unidentified bodies.