THE BARY CASE: THE TIME OF THE CRIME | Enquêtes criminelles | W9

It’s 11:35 on March 26 2004 when Laurent Bary, aged 35, a chicken farmer, returns home to Lanneau near Dijon. As he walks into his living room he discovers a horror scene: his wife, Valerie, 38, lies in a pool of blood, her skull smashed and her body savagely stabbed thirteen times. The gendarmes, immediately called to the scene, find the murder weapon, a butcher’s knife with a blade over eight inches long. But not a single fingerprint, not a sign of DNA is found, as if the killer had miraculously wiped away all traces of his passing. Who could have had a grudge against this auxiliary nurse with an ordinary life? When questioned, Laurent Bary has a cast-iron alibi: he spent the morning delivering chickens in the area and the autopsy reveals that death occurred an hour before the man returned to the conjugal home. The investigation quickly favours the theory of a bungled robbery as several personal items belonging to the victim have disappeared. Eighteen months go by, until Valerie Bary’s watch is found a few short kilometres away from the scene of the crime… in the home of a friend of her husband!