Man remanded in custody over 2015 rape of 93-year-old woman in Biarritz

The attack in Biarritz

On 18 April 2015, at dawn, a 93-year-old woman was raped at her home in Biarritz by a young man who entered without forcing the door and said he had been sent by her usual home-care organisation. The attacker appeared to know the flat and how to get past its alert system, and the victim could not identify him. A DNA sample taken at the time did not establish his identity. She is still alive.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, prosecutor Mariel Garrigos described what investigators had concluded from the scene.

“Everything indicated that the perpetrator knew the premises, knew how to get in and disable the alert system.”

Arrest after a DNA match

The genetic profile from the scene was entered into France's national automated DNA database (FNAEG), and it finally matched eleven years later. Police arrested the man on Tuesday, 27 October. On Wednesday, 28 October, the Bayonne prosecutor's office said he had been placed under formal investigation for rape of a vulnerable person and remanded in custody. He acknowledged the acts while minimising them, and said he had suffered from sexual urges since childhood.

How investigators got there

A first familial DNA search in 2016 found no match. Genealogical work by the Service national de police scientifique then isolated four individuals with a genetic profile close to the one sought, including the suspect's father. The suspect, now 32, was doing a nursing placement at the organisation that served the victim at the time, the prosecutor's office said.

What comes next

The judicial investigation must now establish whether there are other victims, the prosecutor said. The case had remained open for more than eleven years before the database match. The suspect's age at the time of the attack is not stated in the prosecutor's account.