More than fifty years after the events, new excavations began on Monday near Auxerre, in the “cemetery” of serial killer Émile Louis, with the hope of finding the remains of victims, known or even unknown.
The murderer, who died in prison at the age of 79 in 2013, confessed to having buried seven young people with mental disabilities in an area of fields and undergrowth located in Rouvray (Yonne), about 17 km northeast of Auxerre.
Living in the neighboring village of Seignelay, Émile Louis had a shelter on land at this location crossed by a small river, the Serein, where he used to fish.
In 2000, he had pointed out seven sites over a perimeter of approximately 1,500 by 500 meters, one for each of the victims for whom he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 2006. But only two skeletons had been found, the five other victims remaining unburied.
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“We owe bodies to these families,” said Pierre Monnoir, president of the Yonne Association for the Defense of the Disabled (ADHY) and civil party in the case. “The whole area has not been searched. We hope to find, perhaps not all five, but one or two bodies,” he added.
Girls boarding Emile Louis’ bus
The research also aims to exhume possible remains of an eighth potential victim, Marie Jeanne Ambroisine Coussin, whose skull was discovered in December 2018 on the same site.
Marie Coussin, born in 1935 and disappeared in 1975, was a child in public assistance, like the seven known victims. Aged 15 to 25, almost all of them had taken the school bus driven by Émile Louis.
“It is certainly an eighth victim,” estimates Mr. Didier Seban, lawyer for the Coussin family and ADHY. “And there are perhaps still more victims” whose remains could be found, he believes.
Third excavation campaign
These new searches are the third in less than two years, after excavations carried out in the fall of 2024 and then in May 2025. The latter were suspended by the accidental death of a gendarme on the site.
These two operations were not really conclusive, only clothes and a bicycle having been found, without a link being established with the victims, potential or not.
“The Serein river is capricious and the bodies could have been carried away with the waters,” recognizes Me Seban. “But it’s still possible” to find remains, he believes.
These new searches are only planned for “a period estimated at 15 days”, indicated Marie-Denise Pichonnier, public prosecutor in Auxerre, who did not want to specify the means involved.
Originally published at Almouwatin.com
