A 79-year-old man has been charged in France with raping and sexually assaulting 89 minors over more than 50 years, creating a grim reminder of the Giselle Pellicote case across the country.
Prosecutors said Laveaugle worked in a number of roles, including as a school, private tutor and cave exploration guide. (unsplash/representative)Grenoble prosecutor Etienne Manteux revealed the identity of the suspect: Jacques Lavougel, adding that he had also confessed to killing his mother and aunt, prompting another parallel case.
Authorities officially opened an investigation into Loveugal in February 2024, investigating allegations of rape and sexual abuse of minors. He has been held in pre-trial detention since April last year, The Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors said Laveaugle worked in a number of roles, including at the school, as a private tutor and as a cave exploration guide.
USB drive unmasked pedophileThe serial rape case is said to be based on texts compiled by the suspect himself, investigators said. He reportedly compiled the writings into a digital “memoir,” which was later found by a relative on a USB drive and handed over to authorities.
Prosecutors described the text as ’15 volumes’, enabling law enforcement authorities to identify 89 alleged victims aged 13-17 at the time of the alleged incidents from 1967 to 2022.
Prosecutors said the suspect’s ‘memoir’ described sexual acts with minors in several countries, including India. Other countries named are Switzerland, Germany, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, the Philippines and the French territory of New Caledonia.
Manteux said the suspect’s name was released to encourage other victims to come forward. The clarification came from the prosecutor because those under investigation are not usually named in France.
“This name must be known because the goal is to allow potential victims to come forward,” he said during a press briefing.
For decades, authorities have set up a hotline and released photos of Loveugal, saying anyone who believes they were a victim or has information about him should contact them.
The prosecutor confirmed that investigators hope to identify all alleged victims without public appeals. However, they found that the recovered documents contained several incomplete identities.
“We thought, internally, we would be able to identify all the victims,” Manteux said, but “we realized we were up against a wall.”
Lavugele admitted that he killed his mother while she was in the terminal stages of cancer and later killed his 92-year-old aunt.
Manteaux reveals that investigators have found out why Lavugele killed his aunt. He reportedly told them that it was “because he had to go back to Cévennes (a region in France) and she begged him not to go, he even chose to kill her.”
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The prosecutor stressed the need to move quickly in the investigation into the alleged rape and sexual abuse conducted by Lavoogle.
“There is an urgent need,” he said on RTL radio. He cited the suspect’s age and the difficulty of identifying victims over 55 years.
Foreign academicsLoveugle attacked France and other foreign countries, where he was working as an academic.
He spent several years as a teacher for a low-income family in Morocco, where he is suspected of abusing at least ten victims, Manteux told the AP. His stay in Morocco spanned from 1974 to 2024.
Lavougle, who currently lives in the North African country, was arrested on his way back to France.
The suspect worked as a teacher in Algeria from 1967 to 1969 and from 1971 to 1975. He is suspected of abusing at least two children there.
The Giselle Pellicott CaseFrance is still recovering from the country’s most shocking recent sexual violence trial. Giselle Pellicott’s husband was convicted of drugging her and recruiting more than 70 strangers to rape her online between 2011 and 2020.
The trial of the case began in 2024, where Gisele Pellicott revealed a horrific case of systematic sexual abuse while unconscious. Her husband was also reported to have shot the act.
Investigators say a digital trail proved to be a turning point in both Pellicote and Loveugal. In Pellicote’s case, it was dozens of recordings and files, and in Loveugal’s case, six A USB drive with .
