From this Monday, January 20, 2025, before the Hérault Assize Court, Sandrine Pissara, mother, will have to explain why, with her partner, Jean-Michel Cros, she deprived of care until death, on August 6, 2020, his daughter Amandine. The verdict is expected on Friday January 25, 2025 at the end of the day.
On August 6, 2020, the Pézenas gendarmes must intervene, rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, in Montblanc. The doctor who went to the bedside of a 13-year-old girl has just issued a medico-legal obstacle. A little girl died of a cardiac arrest, but above all she is abnormally thin and bears traces of violence. This is the beginning of the Amandine affair. A few months of investigation will bring to light the paroxysm of cruelty committed by a mother and her partner. Amandine's mother and stepfather will be arrested and incarcerated after their indictment on May 27, 2021.
Violence, humiliation, food deprivation
Sandrine Pissarra, 55, the teenager's mother and her companion, Jean-Michel Cros, 50, must, as of Monday, January 20, 2025, answer for their actions before the Hérault Assize Court. The mother is accused of acts of torture and barbarity leading to death without intention, but also of acts of violence committed against the 13-year-old girl. The father-in-law, of deprivation of care and food leading to death. The investigation will gradually reveal Amandine's ordeal. Overwhelming testimony. Deprivation of food, care, violence, humiliation were the daily life of the last months of the teenager's life. Six months before her death, Amandine's doctor did not detect anything abnormal in his patient.
1.55 m for 28 kg at 13 years old
During a hearing, the mother assured investigators that she was not aware of her daughter's weight loss. “only a week before his death.” Yet Sandrine Pissarra insists on the fact “that her daughter was too fat and refused to eat. She was a liar, a thief who could not stand authority.”
The opposite of what her classmates described, who found her “radiant, solar, close to others”.
“We must determine the responsibilities of each person.”
Since the start of this drama and the indictments in 2021, Mes Grégoire Mercier and François Bermond are working on the defense of Jean-Michel Cros, Amandine's father-in-law, whom they released for a time during the investigation before he was imprisoned again after an appeal from the prosecution. “In this tragic affair, Mr. Cros has never ceased to express his deep pain and sincere regret. This family drama is the result of complex circumstances and decisive psychological elements. Faced with such tragic facts, it will be essential to be able to determine the responsibilities of each, independently All these elements will be presented during the hearing in order to enlighten the Court on all the factors which led to this irreparable loss. The entire firm has confidence and knows that. justice will know how to draw necessary conclusions in the light of the elements of facts and personalities which will be presented to him.”
-Conclusions of the expert without appeal
The conclusions of the pathologist will be final. “The person who died at the age of 13 must have been the victim of serious neglect on the part of his family environment to reach such a level of weight loss and poor hygiene.” In this same report, we can read that Amandine, “died a natural death, but following a heart rhythm disorder secondary to a cachectic state (1,55 m pour 28 kg) associated with sepsis and pressure sores.” A wasting syndrome is the observation of alarming thinness, often linked to a serious pathology such as AIDS and cancer or also, very often, anorexia.
“My mother doesn’t want me to be happy”
Amandine's education will also be studied by investigators. A school nurse will mention questionable injuries on the little girl. An education advisor will explain that Amandine's classmates had alerted her to possible mistreatment. They had been denied by the teenager. A social worker was talking about theft… of food. Amandine would have explained to him that in the event of punishment, she would be deprived of food. A boarding school friend had confided to Free Midday that Amandine was a diligent but turbulent student. Full of life and sometimes withdrawn into herself.
“When we asked her for explanations, Amandine confided that she had experienced acts of mistreatment from her mother and her stepfather. She told me that her mother wanted her to leave because she did not want her to be happy… “ Amandine will send, in full confinement, a last message to a friend on April 30, 2020. Then nothing more…
Me Jean-Marc Darrigade, Sandrine Pissarra's lawyer, did not respond to our requests for comment.
