“That afternoon, I mow my lawn. What is going on that makes me leave my house? I'm a little confused here. » In Nantes, this Wednesday October 30, 2024, the fourth and penultimate day of the trial of François Vergniaud, ends. François Vergniaud, his voice quavering, sometimes imperceptible, gives the chilling account of an attack that he had been thinking about for several days, even a few weeks. “I think things were becoming clearer,” he tries to respond to President Laurence Delhaye. However, “I don’t know when the shift occurs.”
Since Friday October 25, the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court has been trying to understand the contours of the personality of the 50-year-old accused, tried for the rape and murder of a teenage girl, as well as for the damage by fire to the building in which he trapped her, on August 20, 2020, in Nantes.
“I intended to erase my fingerprints”
That Thursday afternoon, the supervisor, team leader in a brickworks, then on vacation, left his garden, in Mésanger, north of Ancenis, to go to Nantes. Forgetfulness or thoughtful act: he doesn't take his cell phone… “It wasn’t certain that I would attack someone,” he specifies. However, he puts a bottle…