Murder case has plenty of intrigue

PARIS - A 36-year-old French woman will appear before a judge in Geneva today accused of the mysterious murder of the financier Edouard Stern, who was shot dead while wearing only a latex body suit earlier this month.

The confession of Cecile Brossard - who lived a complicated, double life as a call-girl and the wife of a specialist in alternative medicine - has answered the principal question about the banker's macabre death.

A host of other questions remain unanswered.

Why did Mme Brossard, described as a "slender, elegant woman with long blonde hair", fly to Australia immediately after the murder and then fly straight back to Switzerland again? Why did she send her aunt and uncle a parcel from Australia containing a second latex body suit and other sado-masochistic objects? Why did M. Stern, 50, one of France's wealthiest men and the son of an ancient, French banking family, give Mme Brossard Euros 600,000 and then block access to the money?

Above all, what was Mme Brossard's motive and did she act alone?

Her lawyers say that she was driven to commit a "crime of passion", after being "manipulated psychologically" in a sado-masochistic relationship with the man she loved.

The investigating judge in charge of the case, Michel-Alexander Graber, said yesterday that the confessed murderer's motive remained "in the shadows".

The investigation has yet to decide whether the murder was an unplanned act of anger or passion or a pre-meditated attempt to obtain, or keep, large amounts of money.

Suggestions in the Swiss press that M. Stern may have asked Mme Brossard to put an end to his life have been denied. There have also been reports that police seized an address book belonging to Mme Brossard containing the names and addresses of prominent figures in French public life. This was categorically denied by Judge Graber yesterday.

The judge was also asked whether Mme Brossard could have been hired to kill M. Stern, who was known to have many enemies in the world of finance. He replied: "At this stage in the investigation I cannot exclude the possibility of a contract killing but it is not the line of enquiry that we are concentrating on."

The greatest mystery of all - so far unexplained by Mme Brossard - is her two-day round trip to Australia in the days following the murder. All that is known about her brief stay is that she posted a parcel to her uncle and aunt in Nancy in eastern France, containing a latex body suit which she may have been wearing at the time of the murder.

M. Stern, who was shot four times -- twice in the head -- was found in the bedroom of his apartment wearing a similar suit.

At first investigators thought that this may have been an attempt to disguise a professional killing.

Closed-circuit TV cameras at the apartment block in central Geneva revealed, however, that the only visitor in the evening of the murder was Mme Brossard.

After her arrest last week at her apartment in Montreux, where she lived with her husband, Mme Brossard confessed to the killing.

She told investigators that she had thrown the revolver that she used into lake Geneva. Police have since recovered three guns from the lake, two of which belonged to M. Stern, who was a weapons collector.

Mme Brossard and the dead man first met four years ago. What began as a relationship between a high-class call-girl and a client turned into a bizarre love affair, according to the woman's lawyers.

They said that she had become the "battered victim of an unimaginable, psychological manipulation".

In today's hearing, which will be barred to press and public, Mme Brossard will be formally accused of the murder and her period of custody will be extended.

- INDEPENDENT