A French murder trial that opened Monday has transfixed the public because of the mystery at its core: where is the victim’s body?Cédric Jubillar, a 38 year-old painter-decorator, is accused of killing his wife Delphine nearly five years ago in a fit of jealous rage. He has always denied the charges and, other than circumstantial evidence, investigators have struggled to build a case. There is no body, no blood, no confession, and no witness.With its unexplained central fact and its cast of characters from small-town southern France, the affair has become a social media sensation.Self-declared investigators have set up countless chat groups where they swap theories and share testimony – much to the irritation of police and families.”These groups are the equivalent of the bistro counter – but with more people,” said psychoanalyst Patrick Avrane, author of a book on attitudes to crime.”Everyone constructs the theory that suits him or her the best.”The Jubillar mystery began at the height of Covid lockdown when – in the early hours on 16 December 2020 – Cédric Jubillar contacted the gendarmes to report that his wife had gone missing.Delphine, who was 33 at the time, was a night nurse in a clinic not far from their home in Cagnac-les-Mines in the south-western Occitania region. The couple had two children, aged six and 18 months.Police came to understand that the Jubillars did not have a happy relationship. Cédric Jubillar was a habitual cannabis user and barely held down a job. Delphine was in a relationship with a man she had met over the Internet. She and Cédric were talking about divorce.Police and locals conducted extensive searches in the surrounding countryside – with potholers descending into some of the disused mineshafts with which the area is dotted.Delphine’s body was never found, but a case was gradually built against her husband and in mid-2021 he was placed under investigation and detained.The prosecution at the …
