A paedophile who is suspected of having raped nearly 100 minors and murdering his mother and aunt has been detained in France.
The ex-teacher, Jacques Leveugle, 79, had been charged in 2024 for aggravated rape and sexual assault committed against 89 minors in multiple countries between 1967 and 2022. He has been in custody since.
Prosecutor Etienne Manteaux spoke to reporters in the southeastern city of Grenoble to publicise the case and appeal for witnesses and any other potential victims to come forward.
The crimes against the minors were allegedly committed in Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, Niger, Algeria, the Philippines, India, Colombia, and the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, where he worked as a freelance teacher and instructor, Manteaux said.
The number of victims was established from writings compiled on a USB drive by the man, which refer to ‘sexual relations’ with minors aged 13 to 17.
The USB stick on which the documents were stored by the man was discovered by his nephew, who was ‘questioning his uncle’s emotional and sexual life,’ Manteaux added.
The document comprises 15 volumes, the prosecutor’s office added.
In his ‘memoirs’, the suspect had also confessed to ‘intentionally causing the deaths of two people’, Manteaux said.
A public appeal notice bearing portraits, taken in different years and locations, of Jacques Leveugle, a 79-year-old man who have charged in 2024 for aggravated rape and sexual assault committed against 89 minors
During the investigation, Leveugle admitted to suffocating his mother, a terminally ill cancer patient, with a pillow in the 1970s, according to the prosecutor.
He also suffocated his 92-year-old aunt ‘while she was asleep’ – also with a pillow – in the 1990s, the prosecutor said.
Leveugle had murdered his aunt after ‘he had to go back to the Cévennes, and she begged him not to leave’.
‘He made the choice to kill her as well, and so, taking advantage of her sleep, took a pillow and suffocated her,’ Manteaux added.
Manteaux said he wanted to make public the identity of the suspect, who was born in 1946 in Annecy, because ‘this name must be known because the objective is to allow possible victims to come forward.’
The prosecutor has since launched an appeal for witnesses and ‘to allow any other potential victims to come forward.’
Anyone who has witnessed or been a victim of this individual is asked to contact the Grenoble Gendarmerie Research Section.