Following reports from neighbours about a “weird barbecue’’ and “foul-smelling smoke”, cops rocked up at a west London property last Wednesday to find a body burning in the backyard.

Now, a couple stand accused for the murder of a person thought to be their 21-year-old French nanny, Sophie Lionnet, who had been looking after their two boys.

However, police have yet been unable to tell the age or gender of the victim because the body was so badly burned.

Lionnet began her work for the couple [above] – mother-of-two Sabrina Kouider, 34, and her partner Ouissem Medouni, 40 – 14 months ago.

Shortly before her untimely disappearance she had been speaking to her mother on the phone, reports The Daily Beast:

[She] was due to return home after more than a year Britain, and her mother had just sent her a ticket. Like legions of other young Frenchwomen, Lionnet had moved to London to improve her English and work as an au pair for a well-to-do family.

Something was bothering Sophie—her mother sensed it—but the taciturn young woman kept silent.

“Her mother told her, ‘Sophie, I can tell something is wrong, talk to me!’” Lionnet’s aunt told the French news station RTL. “But she didn’t want to talk.”

But this wasn’t the first time she had hinted at “tensions with her employers”. Back in July she had sent her father a postcard suggesting not everything was right, and that she was planning to return soon.

Without telling anyone what was wrong, Lionnet made plans to return to France on Monday, September 25 – but she never used the ticket:

A neighbour who lived upstairs from where Lionnet was staying called the landlord on Tuesday over an “unpleasant smell,” believing it to be a gas leak. However, after inspecting the apartment, the landlord didn’t find anything unusual.

On Wednesday afternoon, residents of the affluent Southfields neighborhood noticed another bad smell—this time from pungent smoke billowing up in a nearby yard. Curious children even wondered if it could be a barbecue.

“I told him [my son], ‘No that’s not a barbecue, that’s a bad smell,’” a neighbor who didn’t want to be identified told The Daily Mail. “I thought they may be burning leaves.”

One little boy finally poked his head over the fence to see if he could identify the source of the smoke. There was a man in the yard, who appeared to be putting sticks on a large bonfire.

Yesterday, the couple appeared in court.

According to The Independent, Kouider, a French Algerian and ex-girlfriend of Boyzone founding member Mark Walton [above], “became emotional and incoherent”:

She sobbed in court and shouted repeatedly: “J’ai rien fait” – I haven’t done anything.

Kouider, who claims to work as a stylist, make-up artist, fashion designer and songwriter, ‘had a lot of money’ and a busy social life, reports Daily Mail:

Neighbours claimed Sabrina was rarely at the £900,000 home where she lived with her two boys and Medouni.

A neighbour who did not want to be named said of the nanny: ‘Sophie was very shy, I never heard her speak. I just saw her with the boys all the time.”

And that’s it. That’s all we have. No why or how.

The couple will now remain in custody to appear for a hearing on December 12, ahead of a four week trial starting on March 19.

Perhaps then will our questions be answered.

Merde.

[source:thedailybeast&independent]