It was a peripheral aspect of the Magali Blandin case, the mother killed by her husband in Montfort-sur-Meu, near Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) in 2021. And yet it is the only aspect of this case that justice will be able to look into, because three of the main accused in this savage femicide, including her husband Jérôme Gaillard, committed suicide. Three Georgians were therefore sentenced on Tuesday by the Rennes criminal court for their role in this assassination.
In September 2020, Magali Blandin, a special needs educator married to Jérôme Gaillard since 2003 and mother of four children, left the marital home before moving into her apartment in Montfort-sur-Meu, west of Rennes. Jérôme Gaillard, described by relatives as a “domestic tyrant” and unfaithful husband, beat his wife. Magali Blandin, 42, filed a complaint for violence and initiated divorce proceedings.
On February 12, 2021, the police were alerted by a colleague of Magali about the worrying disappearance of the forty-year-old. A few days later, the husband was taken into custody and confessed to his crime. On the day of the tragedy, he had created an alibi, his father having used his phone and the Internet to make people believe that he had stayed at home.
Following her husband’s instructions, investigators then found Magali Blandin’s body in a wood at Lieu-dit La Saudrais (Ille-et-Vilaine), where Jérôme Gaillard had buried her deeply, her body covered in lime, after killing her with a baseball bat in the corridor of the building where she lived.
“I love my wife more than anything but I have no choice but to kill her”
Jérôme Gaillard, who hanged himself in prison in the fall of 2021, had outlined a fantastic “criminal plot” involving Georgians. The Gaillard parents, indicted after giving their son 50,000 euros to pay a hitman, supposedly recruited by Giorgi Z. and who had never actually existed, also committed suicide in February 2023, before being able to be tried.
Several months before the crime, according to the investigation, Jérôme Gaillard had told Giorgi Z. of his intention to kill his wife. This Georgian acquaintance, to whom he rented buildings, had assured him that he could find a professional to carry out the operation for 20,000 euros. In January, Jérôme Gaillard had made two transfers of 6,000 euros to Giorgi Z. in payment of the contract, as well as a payment of 6,000 euros in cash.
VideoDisappearance of Magali Blandin: “Jérôme Gaillard explained in police custody that he had killed his wife”
But Jérôme Gaillard, who had even told two of his children during the Christmas holidays of his intention to assassinate their mother, had understood that the Georgians were not going to commit the assassination and that he had been “scammed”. He had finally decided to carry out the act alone.
In November and December, Giorgi Z. had twice recorded Jérôme Gaillard, without his knowledge, expressing his desire to kill his wife: “I love my wife more than anything, but I have no choice but to kill her.” “If I had believed that Jérôme Gaillard could do that, I would not have let him,” assured Giorgi Z., sobs in his voice.
During the time of Magali Blandin’s disappearance, Giorgi Z., 34, and Severiani T. had left two letters, one of which contained a USB key containing these recordings, at the home of Jérôme Gaillard’s parents to extort money from them in exchange for their silence.
“I would never have imagined that he could kill the mother of his four children,” defended Giorgi Z., the main defendant, before the criminal court which sentenced him to 4 years in prison for not having notified the police when he learned of Jérôme Gaillard’s criminal plan. Giorgi Z. was also found responsible for the moral damage suffered by the civil parties and was sentenced to pay 8,000 euros to Magali Blandin’s sister, 9,000 euros to each of the parents and 10,000 euros to each of the couple’s four children.
Severiani T., a drug addict and repeat offender, was sentenced to two years in prison and a five-year ban from the country. A third Georgian, who was absent from the hearing, was sentenced to one year in prison for having made the car in which Jérôme Gaillard had transported his wife’s body disappear.
