the essential
In 2012, Thierry Tilly was sentenced by the Bordeaux Criminal Court to 8 years in prison, putting an end to the ordeal of the De Védrines family. More than ten years later, what has become of the Monflanquin recluses?
Guillemette de Védrines, is the matriarch of the Monflanquin recluse family. She died in 2010, aged 98. She had three children: Philippe, Ghislaine and Charles-Henri.
The eldest of the three, Philippe continues to live in Lot-et-Garonne. It is not uncommon to come across him in the bastide town of Monflanquin.
Ghislaine and Jean Marchand are retired
The couple separated by the influence of Thierry Tilly and who got back together in 2009 once the confinement was over. Jean, a trained journalist, and his wife still live in the South-West, alternating between Bordeaux and Monflanquin. “We are regularly contacted by the national and international press as well as people asking for advice”, underlines Jean Marchand, retired since 2014. Ghislaine stopped in 2016 after several years of working in a home for young girls. They remarried at the end of this incredible story. “Quickly, in a very natural way, we got back to how we were before, or even better”, adds the former journalist when it comes to talking about the reunion with his family.
Guillemette and François, the Marchand children
Their children, for their part, stayed in England. François is a hotel manager in England, after ten years in the restaurant business. “I wanted to stay away from the media hype. I prefer to experience it from afar. When we were in the United Kingdom, I also met my wife there, with whom I had three children,” says François Marchand. His sister, Guillemette, who was in Bristol, stayed there with her husband whom she met there. She is a French teacher for adults and has two children. “She looks after people who are going to come to France for positions of responsibility, they have to learn our language quickly,” says the forty-year-old. When he met Thierry Tilly, he was in his twenties and almost thirty at the end of the story. Today, François Marchand is 45 years old. Guillemette’s first husband, Sébastien Driant, who appears in the documentary, is still on the Côte d’Azur, in Nice, at the conservatory, as a singing coach.
Charles-Henri de Védrines, back in anonymity
Like many residents of Monflanquin, Charles-Henri de Védrines, Ghislaine’s brother, has returned to work in the Bordeaux region as a gynecologist. He has resumed his life, but has nevertheless watched the documentary available on MyCanal. “We had asked to wait, particularly because of the procedures. When we came back, we were told it was too late,” laments Charles-Henri de Védrines. “I have moved on today. Seeing this ten years later is violent and useless. It is boring and full of mistakes. It is not a good state of mind. “I recommend the documentary made by France Télévisions,” he thunders. For him, the story told is not his own: “It does not tell the story of the De Védrines, but that of the Marchands.” Guillaume, one of his sons, is now in insurance while the youngest of the family, Diane, is said to be in the water treatment sector. Still in Gironde.
Thierry Tilly is free
The Bordeaux Criminal Court sentenced Thierry Tilly to 8 years in prison in 2012, found guilty of abuse of weakness of persons in a state of psychological subjection. The following year, on appeal, he was sentenced to two additional years. In 2018, the crook left the Neuvic-sur-l’Isle detention center in Dordogne where he was imprisoned after having been in Gradignan and Mont-de-Marsan. Shortly after, he became unwell. Taken into care, he was transferred to Cadillac in view of his mental state. The hospital specializes in welcoming people with severe mental disorders. He was released in 2020.
