“I wanted to silence her”

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Not the slightest expression on his face. The gaze is fixed and seems empty. In his box, José N. remains impassive in his box. He shows no reaction when, faced with the jurors of the Val-d'Oise Assize CourtM^e Christian Gallon, the lawyer representing the children of the accused, regrets the lack of explanations from the latter on the murder of their mother at their home in Montmagny, on July 3, 2022.

“They will never have the answers to the questions they will ask themselves in the future,” whispers the council. He did not move further, a few minutes later, when one of the civil party's lawyers, Mr.^e Grégory Saint-Michel described him as “a cold, manipulative man. […] A guy capable of killing, strangling his wife with a belt and putting all his strength into it.”

He denied his intention to kill her

And murder that the 58-year-old man immediately recognized, but without ever really explaining his actions. “I wanted to silence her,” said José N., referring to an argument with his wife who had just told him that she was leaving him. Throughout the hearing, as during the investigation, he refuted his intention to kill her.

A defense that the attorney general swept aside during her indictment.

To die from strangulation requires continuous pressure around the neck for 2 to 3 minutes. It's very long. The whole time he was on top of Rita and he was tightening the belt. If he hadn't intended to kill her he would have stopped tightening the belt, he would have stopped when she struggled and scratched him until he bled. He reportedly stopped when she fell into a coma. She no longer spoke. Of course he intended to kill her.

In the process, the magistrate requested a sentence of 25 years of criminal imprisonment, with a security period of half and the withdrawal of parental authority. “When you kill the mother of your children, who were sleeping on the floor below, you lose the right to participate in their lives. » A request followed by the Assize Court which sentenced the accused to 23 years in prison, Thursday November 21.

“She understood that her children were in danger”

A pink pavilion, with a turret and a slate roof, “which looks like a house from a Walt Disney film”, as M.^e Isabelle Steyer, lawyer for the victim's family. It was on the first floor, in the couple's bedroom, that Rita died while her daughter and son, aged 3 and 6 at the time, were sleeping on the ground floor. Two days earlier, Rita had told him that she was leaving him. “She understood that her children were in danger, that’s when she wanted to leave,” notes the civil party’s lawyer.

It had indeed been months since their relationship had become conflictedsince the mother had decided to find a job, being hired as a salesperson for a seller of equipped kitchens.

This provoked the great anger of the accused, seeing his wife working, being independent, mixing with men, this is not possible for him, he wants to control her.

The lawyer recalls that José N. had also not accepted the breakup with his first wife, Stéphanie, with whom he had been in a relationship for 19 years. A year after their separation, he tried to convince her to come back. An argument broke out during which he sequestered his ex-wife in a room for at least 3 hours, after confiscating his phone and squeezing his wrists with his hands.

“A barbaric act”

It was again with his hands that he attacked Rita on the evening of the tragedy. “But it doesn’t work, so he takes the belt. He's on her struggling. He feels her breath, he feels everything about her. It’s a barbaric act,” denounces the family’s lawyer, emphasizing that 11% of female victims of femicide are killed by strangulation.

“Rita had sent a message at 10:15 p.m. to her sister to tell her that she had just told her husband that she was leaving him. In 45 minutes, she went from relief to death,” notes the attorney general, evoking a whole cycle which only stopped when he killed her. It was 11:35 p.m. on July 3 when emergency services were alerted by neighbors. A few moments earlier, José N. had shown up at their house to confess that he had violently attacked Rita, having left her unconscious in their house. Despite their efforts, emergency services were unable to do anything for the mother.

Rita had been the 55^e feminicide of the year 2022. This ended with the alarming number of 121 murders of women by their spouses.

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