2026-08-13
25 分钟A quick heads up before we get started.
This episode discusses violent crimes, including sexual assault.
Please listen with care.
The long saga of one of France's most notorious cold cases began in 1998 when a man
who came to be known as the predator of the woods attacked a teenage girl.
This happens in the port city of La Rochelle in western France.
Our colleague Matthew Dalton is a Paris correspondent for the journal.
A 16-year-old teenager is walking home from school when she is approached by a man in a car who,
by different accounts, either lures her into the car or forces her into his car,
brandishes a knife, takes her to a wooded area outside the city,
and rapes her, leaves her alive, but very traumatized, and leaves.
Police didn't have much to go on except a description of the attacker.
Tall, gaunt, with light-colored eyes, maybe blue or green.
They distributed the police sketch.
That was their main way of trying to find the person because they didn't really have many other leads.
Over the course of the next decade, the man continued to terrorize France.
He is believed to have raped at least four other young women and teenagers through 2008. Case,
the police did collect DNA.
It all belonged to the same person.
They plugged it into their, the French law enforcement database and there were no matches.