Monday morning, Jean-Luc Clitophon’s lawyers announced that they contest the intention to kill and they requested a reclassification as assault and battery leading to death without intention to cause it.
Their childhood
Jean-Luc Clitophon recounted his difficult childhood, marked by violence and financial problems. He followed training in mechanics within a specialized education, then in masonry. He never graduated. As an adult, he lived on the streets for a few months, received unemployment benefits and worked undeclared for a few years. His hobby was fishing.
Crime in La Louvière: Jean-Luc Clitophon’s lawyers contest homicidal intent
Mary Volkaert says she had a normal childhood. She stopped her culinary studies at the age of seventeen, following the death of her mother. She never worked and received social and family benefits. The household income was around 1,300 euros, and the rent was 620 euros without charges included. His hobby is painting, “but not artistic“, she explains.
Alcohol and drugs
Jean-Luc Clitophon indicates that he started drinking after an accident at work, which injured his shoulder. He consumed beers, vodka, wine, cannabis joints and cocaine in large quantities. “With alcohol, I never showed the slightest sign of aggression“, he insists.
On the day of the crime, he said he drank two bottles of vodka during the day and around fifteen cans of beer in the evening. The president reminds him that he had benefited from a favorable measure before the criminal court, in June 2014, for a burglary. Four years later, he was convicted of selling narcotics.
Mary, for her part, indicates that she smoked six to seven joints a day since the age of twelve. According to Mary, welfare payments were used to pay for cannabis and alcohol. “I was going to beg to meet our needs“, she said shamefully. And then, there was Christiane Scherpereel’s card…
The meeting with the victim
Jean-Luc got to know Christiane Scherpereel while drinking a few beers in front of a store in La Louvière, as well as at her and her partner’s house before their expulsion. He then places this meeting at the end of 2014, a few weeks before the crime. The couple had welcomed Christiane into their home, but not her companion. Following water damage, Christiane, who had mental retardation and health problems, reportedly wanted to sleep in the bathroom, where she received the blows from Jean-Luc.
Mary declares that Jean-Luc was violent with Christiane on only one occasion, which is contrary to what she declared during the investigation.
The day of the events
On the evening of the incident, Mary said she went to bed with her daughter. Jean-Luc had to follow her. The latter does not hold the same version. According to him, Christiane went to bed around 9:30 p.m. and he went upstairs, later with Mary and their daughter.
He then went to ask Christiane, who was in the bathroom, if she had hit her daughter. “She confirmed to me that she had wanted to hit her. I saw red and I slapped him, then five to ten punches. Christiane looked at me without saying a word. She sat on the corner of the bathtub. That’s when I grabbed a video tape and hit her over the head. After that I went downstairs for a few beers“.
Around four o’clock in the night, Jean-Luc got up to go to the toilet in the bathroom and he asked Christiane to come out. He states that she came out, that her face was a little red and that he saw blood coming out.
The day after
The next day, Mary got up first. “I went to the bathroom and asked Christiane how she was. She told me: it’s okay, girl“His statement is not the one made during the investigation, notes the president.
Mary indicates that Jean-Luc woke up later and went to the toilet in the bathroom, after smoking his first cigarette of the day. He confirms and adds that he drank coffee and a few beers. “He told me that Christiane wasn’t responding. I went to see Christiane and she didn’t answer me. He then told me what he had done, that he had hit Christiane with slaps and peaches.“, explains Mary. They noticed that Christiane was no longer in this world.
Christiane was thrown into a well in La Louvière after being beaten and transported to a freezer: Jean-Luc and Mary emptied her accounts
Mary indicates that her partner had the idea of calling her daughter’s godfather, who arrived two hours later. Jean-Luc then told his friend what had happened. “Jean-Luc wanted to go to the police, but he was stopped. Dominique said that the body had to be released“, she said.
Due to the snow and ice, the two men decided not to leave the body in the Besonrieux woods or in a squat, during a scooter search. The two men finally placed the body in a freezer, which they lugged to the Canal du Center on a hand truck. “I cleaned Christiane’s face. Dominique placed him in a blanket. That’s when I saw blood in the bathroom. Dominique broke the bones to put it in the freezer, it made my stomach turn“, declares Jean-Luc.
The duo, who were transporting the freezer on a hand truck with the body inside, encountered a police patrol. They continued their macabre march towards the well in which a corpse was found at the end of April 2021.
Money
Christiane was then receiving a pension. His hosts are accused of having used this card to take advantage of his money, going from a monthly income of 1,300 euros to 3,000 euros. “I told Jean-Luc not to take the money, to throw away this card“, Mary said, during her interrogation. “But you ate the spaghetti bought with this card“, the president calls out to her. She therefore knowingly took advantage of this money.
Mary states that a third party demanded money every month from her partner for his silence after the crime. Jean-Luc returned to this blackmail of 500 euros per month during the investigation, declaring that he had told this story to take revenge.
