“There are two Camilles, the one in real life and the one on social media”: the Assize Court examined the personality of Camille Anguenot on Thursday, September 12 in Vesoul, on trial for the murder of a suitor whose body she had hidden in a cupboard.
The 20-year-old woman recounted on Wednesday the night of the murder of Théo Decouchant, 23, and her act on November 29, 2021. That evening, she invited this suitor to spend the evening at her place, in a small town in Haute-Saône. She rejected his advances, but they fell asleep together in her bed.
During the night, she was woken up by his caresses, which she still rejected. “He said to me: ‘You sleep with other guys, why don’t you want to with me?’. It reminded me that I was an easy girl” and “I completely went off the rails”, the young woman confided in court. She then grabbed a kitchen knife, stabbed him in the stomach, before going to get a cord from her room to come back and finish him off.
“The only time she says no, she has someone in front of her who doesn’t hear her,” analyses her lawyer, Catherine Bresson. “There are two Camilles: the one in real life and the one on social media,” where she has created a glamorous life for herself and delights in the “clicks” of her followers.
“Virtual world and real world”
That evening, “the Camille who only lives for social networks and for others (…) faces reality: I am an easy girl”, continues the lawyer who sees here a possible reason for the action.
“Isn’t it a bit easy to say: ‘Yes, I committed the irreparable, yes I killed a man, but it’s because I confused the virtual world and the real world?'”, asks Attorney General Arnaud Grécourt in return.
This highlights the elements pointing to a heinous crime, committed by this young woman, 18 years old at the time, who was desperate to find a vehicle and money to go and join a lover in Bordeaux.
He also notes that she “shows much more emotion towards her horses than towards the people around her, or towards a man she killed.”
The day after the murder, Camille Anguenot, who does not have a driver’s license, takes her victim’s car and credit card to go to Bordeaux. She then continues to live normally.
A car accident puts an end to her ride and she finally returns home, where the police, alerted by Théo Decouchant’s mother, arrive a week after the murder and discover the young man’s body wrapped in garbage bags, hidden in a broom cupboard.
“Egocentrism and venality”
At the time of the murder, “she was a teenager who was far from mature, fed on social networks”, who had “a fascination with the image she gave of herself”, notes psychiatrist Sylvain Alexis. “We often see this in very young people, who are increasingly consumed by desire and who like to show themselves off, with ‘stories’. Everything that this phenomenon (of social networks) causes in adolescents and pre-teens is terrible”.
During her conversation with Camille Anguenot, she admitted to having felt a “relief” at the time of her arrest, “as if reality had taken over, stopping her deadly flight.”
The psychiatric expert concluded that the young woman’s “discernment” was impaired at the time of the events. He described a “borderline” defendant with “psychopathic and perverse traits” and displaying “egocentrism and venality”.
His colleague, Dr Henri Brunner, on the contrary rejects the alteration of discernment and notes “a temperamental personality, clinically banal”, without psychiatric disorder.
The “real-life Camille” is also this child of about ten years old who witnessed the “verbal and physical violence” of her father towards her mother. The latter spoke to the jury about the day when, in front of her daughters, the man from whom she was separating “rushed towards her and tried to strangle (her)”. Camille Anguenot cried in the dock. On trial since Tuesday, she faces 30 years in prison. Verdict on Friday.
- BFMTV.com
