Assizes of the Channel. Fatal stabbing: the accused sentenced to 17 years of criminal imprisonment

The last day of trial of the woman accused of having killed a man with five stab wounds in the Dollée district, in Saint-Lô (Manche), opened this Friday June 14, 2024 on the requisitions of the attorney generala magistrate of the Court of Appeal of Caen (Calvados).

In the introduction to his speech, he explained why this trial had put him in a bad mood:

I’m grumpy because I can’t stand the lies, the approximations, the black holes, the people who refuse to talk, the people who don’t come.

However, according to him, it was a “dramatically simple” file. But the accused decided to do something very complicated with it. In summary: she has a bad temper.

She can’t stand Jimmy, the victim. She wants him to leave. Exasperated, she goes to get a knife in the kitchen. Jimmy, who attacked his son’s partner, shoves her.

Five stab wounds

She then determinedly plunges her knife into his back four times, and a final blow into his thigh which causes blood to squirt.

Then she puts the bloody knife in the kitchen, and leaves the place with a friend present with whom she will take shelter from the police, not without ordering everything to be cleaned up and took a bottle of whiskey to finish the night. “Absolutely creepy. »

” Lies ! »

The attorney general is offended. How can this woman say, from the start of the trial, “I regret” while looking straight into the eyes of the family members of her victim, while throughout the three days of the affair she accumulates the lies?

” Lies ! “, denounces the magistrate, waving the red sleeves of his toga at each example he cites: lies in his account of unfolding of eventslie when she claims to have called for helplie to make the police believe that she is in Caen, lie about the reenactment scene lie even about his previous life, about his attitude with his son…

Lies, staging, it doesn’t stop. The bigger it is, the better it is for her.

Turning then to the accused, the magistrate apostrophes her: “Where is the problem that prevents you from saying: yes, I couldn’t stand Jimmy anymore, yes, I took a knife? What you say, what you describe is not credible, you are self-scuttleding even though what is at stake for you is these 30 years of criminal imprisonment that you incur.”

A sentence of 22 years in prison required by the attorney general

This mention of 30 years is the allusion to the maximum sentenceif the accused is convicted of murderthat is to say guilty of having had the intention to kill his victim.

The magistrate did not make this remark by chance. He is convinced of the murderous will of the accused, and he argues. She announced her intention to kill when, beginning to get angry in the evening, she warned: “If anyone touches my children , I take out the knife and I plant.” Then we heard him say about Jimmy:

I’m going to slit his throat.

On the other hand, the blows given to Jimmy’s lower back were with violence since the blade penetrated his body twice almost to the hilt of the knife, and if the other blows did not penetrate as far, it is because the blade came up against the bones or vertebrae.

Finally, the blow to Jimmy’s thigh which caused death draining him of his blood, the accused gave it while his victim was on the ground, with force, the blade penetrating up to 16 cm.

Consequently, the magistrate requested a sentence of 22 years in prison for the accused. Without socio-judicial monitoringat the end of her stay in the cell, the magistrate emphasizing that the accused, installed in lies and denial since her 3 years of incarcerationdoes not progress despite regular meetings with a psychologist .

Did the accused intend to kill?

In defense, M^e Tannier invited the jurorsto take up the questions that they will have to debate in their deliberation . First question: is the accused guilty of having intentionally used violence with a weapon on said Jimmy? “Yes,” replies the lawyer. “His DNA is on the knife that caused the victim’s five wounds. So she held the knife well. »

Second question: did the accused’s violence lead to Jimmy’s death? “Yes,” replies the lawyer.

The cause of death is perfectly established.

It was the wound in the thigh, reaching the femoral, which caused the victim to bleed to death.

Third question: did the accused intend to kill Jimmy? M^e Tannier objected to the attorney general’s position on the latter issue. What did she want? Getting rid of Jimmy, who she didn’t like seeing at home. He resisted to stay by attacking the partner of William, the son of the accused, who intervened to defend his friend.

In this confusion, the accused was pushed and knocked to the ground by Jimmy. It was in this circumstance that she used her knife. Her blows certainly caused Jimmy’s death, but for the lawyer, she had not intended to kill him. But what should we think of her attitude when, running away from home, to take shelter from the police, she was forced to step over Jimmy, dying in his own blood?

The verdict

The verdict was pronounced this Friday around 4 p.m., after four hours of deliberation. The court found the accused guilty of murder and sentenced her to a sentence of 17 years of criminal imprisonment with the obligation of socio-judicial supervision for 10 years upon her release from prison (she has already served nearly 3 years at Caen prison).

As an additional penalty, she is prohibited from stayingin the Channel. The court was convinced of the accused’s desire to kill Jimmy. For several reasons: the intensity and multiplicity of the stabbings, the death threats she made, “if anyone touches my kids, I’ll take out my knife”.

Or again, regarding Jimmy: “I’m going to slit his throat.” Added to these attitudes of the accused is the fact that she did not attempt to help the person she had just stabbed.

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