chargement...
Nearly forty years after the initial investigation began, the parents of Inass, the Moroccan child found dead and severely disfigured in 1987 along the A10 motorway, are set to stand trial before the criminal court of Loir-et-Cher in Blois, France. The long-awaited trial is scheduled to run for three weeks, from November 9 to 27, 2026.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the mother, now 71, will be tried on charges of «torture and acts of barbarity resulting in death» without intent to kill. The father, aged 74, will face charges of complicity.
The child, widely referred to in the French media as the «A10 martyr» because of the numerous injuries found on her body, was discovered on August 11, 1987, in a roadside ditch near Suèvres, in the Loir-et-Cher region between Orléans and Tours. She was four years old at the time.
Born in July 1983, the child’s body showed severe signs of abuse, including burns believed to have been caused by a clothing iron and bite marks attributed to a woman, according to forensic findings. After exhausting all investigative leads, the French gendarmerie launched what was described as the largest witness appeal in the country’s history to identify the victim. Her description was circulated in more than 30 countries, and her image was displayed in 65,000 schools and 30,000 municipal buildings. The case was closed without prosecution in 1991 and again in 1997 after investigations failed to yield results, leaving it unsolved for decades.
DNA Analysis Reopened the Case in 2018
The victim was born in Casablanca and spent about 18 months in Morocco with her maternal grandmother before joining her parents in Puteaux, near Paris, at the end of 1985. She was the third of seven children. Although she was enrolled in early education and registered with the family benefits fund, she never actually attended school, confirming her administrative presence in France.
The case took a decisive turn in 2018, when DNA analysis conducted on her brother in connection with an unrelated case led to her identification. A comparison with France’s national automated DNA database revealed a match with traces found on the clothing and blanket in which her body had been wrapped. This breakthrough resulted in the identification of the child and the arrest of her parents in June 2018.
During their pre-trial detention, neither parent admitted responsibility for the violence that led to their daughter’s death. Each blamed the other and referred to episodes of domestic violence. Several appeals filed by both the defense and the prosecutor’s office in Blois against the decision to refer the case to trial led to years of delays before the proceedings were finally scheduled.
