PARIS - Two brothers were charged with the rape and murder of four young women on Saturday, after their bodies were found in shallow graves on Sainte Cecile beach, near Boulogne sur Mer, Lara Marlowe reports.
Ms Amelie Merlin (17) and her sister Peggy (20), and Ms Audrey Lamotte (17) and her sister Isabelle (20) were last seen hitch hiking home from a mardi gras carnival near Boulogne in the early hours of February 12th.
The two suspects, Mr Jean Michel Jourdain (35) and Mr Jean Louis Jourdain (38), were previously convicted of violent crimes. In 1989, Jean Michel was sentenced to 15 years in prison for strangling an 18 year old woman to death. His brother was sentenced that same year to 10 years in prison for rape. They were released after serving six and five years respectively.
Police found the four bodies near a second World War German fortification where Mr Jean Michel Jourdain had buried the young woman he killed in 1986.
The arrest and arraignment of the Jourdain brothers has led to widespread calls for restoration of the death penalty, which was abolished in France in 1981. Sexual assaults have risen by 40 per cent in France over the past decade.