It is a particularly worrying profile which was at the center of the debates, Thursday November 7, at the Bourges courthouse (Cher). As our colleague relates Republican Berrya 26-year-old young man appeared in public hearing before the judge of freedoms and detention in the context of a criminal case.
He had just been indicted for having attempted to murder the day before a nurse at the George-Sand specialized hospital center in the Cher prefecture. The suspect was a patient at this psychiatric facility. Around 10 a.m., Wednesday morning, he attacked the caregiver by stabbing her three times in the throat. The victim's vital prognosis was not in jeopardy; the nurse was able to leave the emergency room in the afternoon.
“It’s like there’s someone in my head”
As for the attacker, his escape was short-lived. He was arrested a few minutes later on a city street. The weapon was found in the library of the establishment where he was hospitalized. The Bourges public prosecutor's office has opened a judicial investigation for attempted assassination. While in police custody, the young man allegedly explained his actions by his desire to go to prison. This is what he repeated Thursday before the judge of freedoms and detention. “My place is in detention, not in psychiatry”, our colleague reported, quoting him.
His lawyer pleaded in favor of psychiatric treatment in prison. In 2020, a previous incident had already occurred in the same George Sand hospital. The young man, who showed signs of impatience throughout the hearing, was incarcerated at the Orléans-Saran penitentiary center.
Heavy history
The attacker of the Berruyère nurse already had a serious history. Thursday July 20, 2017, he called the gendarmerie to warn that he had just killed a 78-year-old woman in Two. The young man had waited for the police to arrive near a bus shelter. “Is the lady dead?” I don't know what I did, it's like there was someone in my head.” the young man declared spontaneously when the gendarmes arrived before leading them to the victim's house.
The latter had received around thirty stab wounds mainly to the head, face and neck. The septuagenarian had lived alone at home since the death of her husband a few years earlier. Jordan L. was then 19 years old and lived 150 m from the crime scene.
He had indicated that he had entered the pensioner's house to commit theft. It was then that he was surprised by the victim who was watching television. Jordan L. killed her as she tried to escape, then left the scene without taking anything. An hour before the tragedy, the teenager had stolen a cell phone from a neighboring house whose occupant had gone on vacation. The day before, while he was in Blois, he had without violence stolen the handbag of a woman sitting in a square. Then he went to the police station just before the victim came to file a complaint.
During his interrogation before the investigating judge in November 2017, he claimed again that voices had ordered him to commit the burglary, then the murder of the septuagenarian.
The investigation established that the young man had a difficult childhood marked by the death of his father in 2000 and by the material difficulties of his mother who worked night shifts. Often left to his own devices, Jordan L. had been subject to placement measures and psychiatric hospitalizations due to significant behavioral disorders. Between the ages of 15 and 17, he appeared several times before the children's court for acts of violence, theft and death threats.
Automatically hospitalized in psychiatry
After his indictment for murder, the young man was placed in pre-trial detention. Given his psychiatric condition, his incarceration took place in the specially equipped hospital unit of the Orléans-Saran remand center. Several incidents, including violent behavior and suicidal comments, punctuated this detention.
An initial psychiatric assessment carried out as part of the investigation concluded that an act was caused by delusional elements and a hallucinatory mechanism. For the psychiatric expert, Jordan L. was suffering from an abolition of discernment when he committed the crime. Members of the victim's family had requested a second opinion, the conclusions of which confirmed the first report and indicated that the young man was suffering from psychological disorders at the time of the events. This led the Blois public prosecutor to take requisitions with a view to seizing the investigating chamber of the Orléans Court of Appeal.
On November 21, 2019, the court declared the young man who had been automatically hospitalized in a psychiatric unit not criminally responsible. The investigating chamber had imposed a 20-year security period, as well as a ban on possessing a weapon and traveling to Binas.
