Pierre Aurignac confirmed during a press conference in Tarbes that research was underway in Jaca, a small Spanish town located about 200 km from the scene of the crime, “but also in the Hautes-Pyrénées and in the neighboring departments ” where a hundred gendarmes are deployed.
The suspect’s motorcycle was found in this city located in Aragon where an important search device has been in place since Tuesday morning.
A man and a woman, both teachers in a college in the town of Tarbes, were shot dead Monday in the village of Pouyastruc by a suspect who “fleed”, according to the prosecutor.
“We are actively looking for the husband (of the deceased woman, editor’s note), who has not reappeared since”, he underlined, specifying that this worker from a factory in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques manufacturing helicopter engines and the victim were going through a divorce.
“There were exchanges at one point” with the suspect, explained the prosecutor, adding that the contact was then broken, without having made it possible to locate this “former reservist, sports shooter”.
“A number of weapons were discovered at his home,” he said, adding that the suspect had a clean criminal record.
The 32-year-old woman was found late Monday afternoon lying in a street in Pouyastruc by neighbors who alerted the gendarmes. Arrived on the spot, they also discovered a 55-year-old man, who died in his house, a few meters away, according to the prosecutor.
The two victims, Gabriel Fourmigué and Aurélie Pardon, were respectively physical education and French teachers at the Desaix college in Tarbes.
They had “become closer emotionally in recent weeks during a school trip”, said Pierre Aurignac.
“Everything suggests that this drama is linked to this context of separation,” he said.
He, originally from the Gers, was known for his sporting exploits. He had won the world junior bobsleigh championship, before representing France at the Winter Olympics in Albertville in 1992 and those in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994.
“Gaby was an extraordinary boy, very endearing, always with a smile on his face, he is a great athlete from Condom, natural in his way of being”, underlined Carole Fratus, president of the Condom rugby club.
The two children of the wanted suspect and the victim have since been cared for by other members of their family.
A judicial investigation, retaining the qualification of “assassinations” has been opened, while the file will be transferred to the prosecution of Pau, specified the prosecutor of Tarbes.
bur-mig-cor-fby / mer / gvy
