The murder trial in France that has no body and transfixed everyone

France is in the grip of a murder case – with no body.

On Monday, the trial of Cédric Jubillar opened in the small town of Albi in the south of France.

Jubillar, 38, has been accused of killing his wife Delphine Jubillar at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Authorities may have charged Jubillar with murder, but convicting him could be a difficult task.

Not only is there no body, there is also no blood, no DNA evidence and no eyewitnesses. Cédric, for his part, has denied all the accusations against him. The couple have two children.

But what happened? And what do we know about the case which has much of France transfixed?

Let’s take a closer look.

What happened?

The story kicked off on 16 December 2020, with Jubillar contacting the police. The 38-year-old painter-decorator told the gendarmes that his wife was missing. Delphine, a night nurse, worked at a clinic close to their home.

The police and locals immediately searched the countryside. Even some of the disused mine shafts in Cagnac-les-Mines in the south-western Occitania region were searched. However, Delphine’s body was not found.

Police then began investigating – and what they learnt did not look good for Jubillar . Not only could he not hold down a job, the couple were also talking about divorce. Not only that, Delphine was in a relationship with a man she had met online. Jubillar was also a regular cannabis user.

His disinterested behaviour during the search for his wife also set alarm bells ringing for investigators. He also made threatening remarks in front of eyewitnesses about what he would have done to Delphine had she left him for another man.

Regardless, Jubillar was taken into custody by the police in 2021. A pre-trial investigation showed that a pair of Delphine’s glasses was found broken. One of their sons, who was six at the time, testified that he heard an argument between husband and wife. Neighbours also confirmed that they overheard screams.

Two of Jubillar’s former associates – a former cellmate and an ex-girlfriend – have claimed that he admitted to them that he killed Delphine and where he stashed her body. Still, the police have not recovered the body – nor have they found any conclusive evidence to link him to Delphine’s disappearance. The investigating judges agreed there was enough circumstantial evidence for Jubillar to be sent to stand trial.

The country has witnessed myriad group chats being set up to discuss the case in great depth – and whether Cédric is guilty.

“These groups are the equivalent of the bistro counter – but with more people,” psychoanalyst Patrick Avrane, author of a book on attitudes to crime, told BBC. “Everyone constructs the theory that suits him or her the best.”

What do we know about the trial?

The trial is expected to last a month. Nearly a dozen experts will be called to the stand as well as over five dozen witnesses. There are over 16,000 pages of evidence alone.

Prosecutors are expected to hammer Jubillar – who appeared in the dock in a tracksuit top and jeans – over the fact that Delphine was having an affair and that she was on the verge of leaving him. They will argue that he could not bear this, which is what ultimately led him to kill her and dispose of the body.

However, Jubillar, over the years, has maintained his innocence and continues to do so. “I still deny the accusations against me,” Jubillar said in court, as per Le Monde.

His lawyers say they understand why this case is a source of fascination for the public. “There are all the ingredients for this to be of interest to everyone,” Alexandre Martin, one of Cédric Jubillar’s two lawyers, told the newspaper. He pointed to “a nurse who disappears in the middle of the Covid crisis (…) the mystery, the absence of a body.”

But he pointed out that there was no hard evidence in the case to convict Jubillar.

“The prosecution is trying to construct a story, to create a motive, a character that would fit the actions he is accused of,” Martin told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Delphine’s family added that the trial is creating “a lot of apprehension” for them. Mourad Battikh, who represents five of her kin, said he hoped the trial “will allow some sort of truth to emerge, or at least push the accused to his limits in the face of his contradictions.”

Neither of the couple’s children is taking part in the trial. The older one, who is 11, is “in a state of stress,” “waiting” and “hopes for the truth,” said another family lawyer, Malika Chmani.

Writer Thibault de Montaigu, writing in Le Figaro, wondered how a “red-eyed, fuzzy-brained guy who smoked ten joints a day could have carried out the perfect crime?”

“Killing his wife without leaving the slightest trace; secretly transporting her body, burying her in an unfindable location, then coming back to tell the police – all while his two children slept quietly in their bedrooms. And this was a guy who greeted the cops in panda pyjamas and then played Game of Thrones on his phone the very morning of the disappearance. So: genius bluffer; lucky fool; or poor innocent?” Montaigu wrote.

It appears time will tell.

With inputs from agencies