“I thought I would turn the page, move on to something else. I was considering moving, leaving Le Passage-d'Agen. » Faces drawn by sleepless nights, a second exhausting trial and four days of back and forth between Agen and Auch, Sophie Ratier copes with the absence of clear answers. Also a respite. “Everything constantly replays in a loop in my head…”
Thursday, December 19, Jean-François Nabarlas and his son Abraham Garcia were found guilty, on appeal, of the murder of his mother, France Piechocki, killed in her house in March 2020. John Nabarlas, son and brother of the accused, was acquitted of the crime. Convicted solely for the acts of fraud, having participated in the use of the bank card stolen from the victim, he was able to leave detention, his sentence having already been served behind bars.
“I am pessimistic by nature, I have always been afraid of an acquittal. But anyway, I don't know if big sentences change anything. I was given to understand, before this second trial, that one of the young people might speak. Today, I have more doubts than information, despite the two hearings. Each time, we are served a new scenario…”
Abysmal vertigo
Conceiving this act as a villainous murder remains unthinkable for those close to France Piechocki. “My mother was not an aggressive person, she was 75 years old, measured 1.50 meters and weighed 50 kg. Stealing her credit card, by pushing her, locking her in a room, would have been easier. I'm sure she would have objected, but not even considered filing a complaint. Why bother with his face? Hit her again while she was on the ground? Otherwise, to want to destroy it…”
Murder of France Piechocki: 30 years of criminal imprisonment required, on appeal, against the three accused
Last day of the trial, this Wednesday, December 18, of Jean-François Nabarlas and his sons, Abraham Garcia and John Nabarlas, where the father, once again, took responsibility for the death of a 75-year-old retiree, in his house in Passage-d’Agen, in 2020
Abysmal dizziness for Sophie Ratier, witness to the kindness shown by her mother towards the Nabarlas-Garcia family, her former neighbors. “When their electricity was cut off, she stretched wires from her house so that they had power. She gave them things, baby clothes. She knew the two brothers when they were very young; They even called her Mamie Ader, after her little dog. They knew that she would open the door for them…” The laconic statements of the accused did not allow France Piechocki's daughter to understand the financial motive, “on the part of people who drive Mercedes and attack someone who has an old Punto.”
“My mother had 1,200 euros in retirement, not a lot of money. She had put her house, in which she had lots of memories, into life annuity, because she did not have the means to maintain it. Massacre a person as vulnerable as a child for her credit card, without stealing anything else from her, I don't understand. Otherwise it's sordid. »
“A nightmare that lasts”
“She was a very simple woman, very attentive to others. As a nurse, she took care of the neighborhood, gave vaccinations, took care of the grandpa who lived next door, and accompanied her husband suffering from Parkinson's disease until the end. » France Piechocki's life, marked by intimate dramas – the death of her first husband, that of her son – revolved around her grandchildren. “She fought to take in my niece, was very present for her grandchildren, she was the ideal grandmother. We lived 300 meters as the crow flies, were very close. During his funeral, in the middle of the Covid period, there were no more than 9 of us in the church, we could not touch his coffin. She did not leave with dignity. It’s a nightmare that still lasts today…”
“Massacre a person as vulnerable as a child for his Blue Card? It’s sordid”
Propelled into a violent legal procedure, like the return to the house unsealed with the blood of the victim still on the walls, Sophie Ratier had a hard time experiencing the aggressiveness of the debates before the Gers Assize Court. “I was wondering where we were; I felt contempt for our pain. And we had to listen to lies, nonsense, like when it was said that the father came to get copper from his garage. As if my mother owned this type of thing! »
If the conviction of Jean-François Nabarlas to 25 years of criminal imprisonment is final, just like the acquittal of his son John, a new trial of Abraham Garcia could be held, if the Court of Cassation grants the appeal made by the defense. For the moment, Sophie Ratier does not want to think about it. Far from the terrible photos of her mother's body, “so modest”, covered in bruises, France Piechocki reflects, in the photos as in the memories of her family, the image of who she was: a caring and luminous woman.
