Cold Case Reopened: Belgian Women Missing Since 1984 Probed
More than four decades after two young women from Liège vanished without a trace while hitchhiking through France, the French judicial unit for unsolved crimes has officially reopened the case. A judge has been assigned to investigate the disappearance of Marie-Agnès Cordonnier and Françoise Bruyère, both 22, who were last seen in August 1984 near Aix-les-Bains in the Savoie region. The reopening, confirmed by the families, brings renewed hope for answers in one of Belgium and France’s most enduring cold cases.
A Summer Vacation That Ended in Mystery
On August 20, 1984, the two cousins left Liège by train for Mâcon, in the Saône-et-Loire region of France, planning a hitchhiking trip to Lake Annecy for a windsurfing vacation. After spending two days with a winegrower couple they had befriended during the previous year’s grape harvest, they set off again on August 22. A photograph taken that evening on Place Lamartine in Mâcon shows the women writing a hitchhiking sign reading “Aix-les-Bains” — their last known visual trace.
According to RTBF, the women made a phone call to their parents that evening saying everything was fine. But after six or seven days without news, the families grew alarmed. On September 3, 1984, the parents alerted the French gendarmerie. The disappearance was made public three days later.
A Suspect Emerges — Then Vanishes From Justice
The investigation initially yielded little. In November 1984, 130 young people from Belgium, using buses lent by the Belgian army, traveled to France for a search party, but nothing was found.
In 1993, Judge Marc Baudot of Chambéry relaunched the investigation. Police Captain Jean-Yves Michellier and his colleague Patrick Manniez retraced the women’s entire itinerary. A key suspect emerged: Serge C., a friend of a truck driver who had reported picking up the cousins. As Le Dauphiné Libéré reported in 2022, the retired captain remains convinced they had the solution: “I think we had it.”
The truck driver had told police his Jeep was found damaged and cleaned with acid around the time of the disappearances — and he had lent it to Serge C. Despite being placed in pre-trial detention, Serge C. was released within a week after his aunt, a show-business personality, secured a prominent Parisian lawyer. The case was dismissed in 1996 in what investigative outlet Les Jours described as an “inexplicable non-lieu” despite a solid suspect. Serge C. died in May 2020 at age 65, always maintaining his innocence.
A New Chapter With Modern Forensics
The case is now in the hands of the Pôle des crimes sériels ou non élucidés, the French cold case unit based in Nanterre, near Paris. As Paris Match Belgium reported in February 2026, the unit had been expected to take up the case, and the official reopening has now been confirmed.
The unit has access to modern forensic techniques — DNA analysis, digital evidence processing, and advanced investigative methods — that were not available in the 1980s and 1990s. The Parquet de Nanterre hopes to finally end more than 40 years of mystery. As retired Captain Michellier told RTL in 2025: “Even if several witnesses have died, other people’s tongues can still loosen.”
A Family’s Quiet Hope
Denis Bruyère, brother of Françoise, told RTBF that the family no longer expects justice in the traditional sense. “To say we’re waiting for justice to be done to us, no… Not really anymore,” he said. Instead, he recalled his late father’s words: “What I remember beyond the tragedy is the human solidarity that was around us.”
The case of Françoise Bruyère and Marie-Agnès Cordonnier is part of a broader category of unsolved disappearances along the A6 highway corridor in France, sometimes referred to as “Les Disparues de l’A6.” It remains the oldest cold case in the Savoie region.
What Comes Next
The newly assigned judge will determine the investigative steps ahead — new witness interviews, re-examination of physical evidence, and potential application of modern forensic science to materials preserved from the original inquiry. With the passage of 42 years, time is of the essence, but the reopening itself represents a significant victory for the families who have waited more than four decades for answers.
The case also highlights the cross-border dimension of unsolved crimes in Europe. Belgian families, Belgian media, and even a search party organized with buses from the Belgian army have kept the story alive. Now, with French judicial resources dedicated to cold cases, there is renewed hope that the mystery of what happened to two young women on a summer adventure may finally be solved.