An 11-year-old girl was shot dead and her father seriously injured last Saturday in the garden of her home in Plonevez-du-Faou, in the Brittany region, after a neighbor opened fire, in the context of a possible neighborhood conflict, announced the prosecutor’s office on Sunday.
Around ten o’clock at night, in the mountains of Arrée, “the Chateaulin police intervened (…) after the firing of firearms”, indicated the prosecutor of the Republic of Quimper Carine Halley in a press release.
At the scene, the gendarmes discovered the lifeless body of an 11-year-old girl. The girl and her family are British, according to police sources. The girl’s father was also found seriously injured, while her mother was slightly injured. The couple’s second daughter, aged eight, was found safe and sound “but in shock,” the prosecutor said.
According to the first elements of the investigation, “the neighbor of the victims, a 71-year-old Dutch pensioner, suddenly appeared armed with a firearm” and shot at the family who were in the garden. According to the prosecutor’s office, although the reasons for this tragedy are still unknown, “it seemed that there had been a conflict between the two neighbors for several years over land adjacent to the two properties.”
The neighbor would have used his weapon, a rifle, and would have shot from a hedge before returning to his house, along with his wife. “After the intervention of the police and the GIGN, the defendant and his wife ended up turning themselves in. They were arrested around 11pm and taken into police custody,†Ms Halley said.
In the newspaper Le Télégramme, a retiree from the army, a direct neighbor of the family targeted by the shots and whose name has not been specified, recounted the scene: “I was at home at the beginning of the night, I saw that the whole family was installed below oak, at the end of their garden that I can see from my house, the two girls were playing near the swings, the parents were sitting on their usual bench and having a barbecue”.
The alleged murderer “arrived three years ago and does not speak to anyone. He had already caused a scandal in the town hall complaining about the noise,” he added. According to another testimony, quoted in the Ouest-France newspaper, “everyone knew this family (the victims) in the village.” “The mother works in ADMR (home help in rural areas) and the father works at home,” Serge and Sylvie explain to the Breton newspaper.
On Sunday, an AFP correspondent confirmed the presence of gendarmes on the spot and a team of dogs in this village of a dozen permanent residents, where there is a famous parish church.
The Quimper prosecutor’s office opened a flagrant investigation on the charges of intentional homicide of a minor under 15 years of age and attempted intentional homicide. The investigation is in charge of the soldiers of the Investigation Brigade (BR) of Chateaulin.
