Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997, Dany Leprince will be fixed this Thursday on his request for review. Nicknamed at the time ”the butcher of Sarthe”, he was found guilty of a quadruple murder. After confessing at the very beginning of the procedure, he has maintained his innocence for many years.
What happened?
On September 4, 1994, his brother Christian Leprince, his wife and two of their daughters, Audrey, seven years old, and Sandra, 10 years old, were found massacred with knives in their house in Thorigné-sur-Dué (Sarthe). . Solène, two years old, was the only survivor.
Dany Leprince, accused by his wife Martine Compain – from whom he has since divorced – and his eldest daughter Célia, confessed while in police custody to having killed his younger brother, without mentioning the three other victims. He quickly recanted, claiming that his confession had been extorted by investigators. Since then, he has maintained his innocence. The man who was nicknamed ”the butcher of Sarthe” was sentenced to life imprisonment with 22 years of security in 1997 for this quadruple murder by the Assize Court.
What are the new facts?
After the rejection of his cassation appeal in 1999 – the possibility of appealing a conviction by an assize court has only been possible in France since 2000 – he filed a first request for review in 2006. But the Court review had refused in 2011 to hold a new trial.
In a 200-page brief, his lawyers listed around twenty “new facts and elements unknown to the trial court likely to establish his innocence or to give rise to doubt about his guilt”. Among its elements are notably the role of Martine Compain on the evening of the events, her personality and her “multiple reversals”, as well as the “remarkably evolving” versions of Célia and the analysis of the knives cited in the procedure.
The defense also relies on a letter sent in April 2024 to the investigating committee by Solène, now 32 years old, revealing that she had “serious doubts as to the guilt” of her uncle, “in view of the numerous inconsistencies” of the file. She said she “fervently hopes that a new trial can take place to seek the truth”.
-According to the advice of Dany Leprince, the attorney general requested to “wait” for the development of the judicial investigation opened in 2014 in Le Mans after a complaint filed by the father of the Leprince sons for murder and complicity. In this procedure, Martine Compain was placed under the more favorable status of witness assisted by the investigating judge but the prosecution is demanding her indictment. The hearing at the investigating chamber of the Angers Court of Appeal has not yet been scheduled, said the general prosecutor’s office.
What should you expect?
The investigating committee of the Court of Cassation will say this Thursday whether or not it transmits Dany Leprince’s request to the Court of Review. The decision will be made at 2 p.m. in public hearing.
The investigating committee may order additional information if it considers that additional investigations must be carried out, reject the request or, on the contrary, transmit it to the Court of Review. Only the latter, if contacted, can rule on whether or not the life sentence of Dany Leprince, now 67, should be annulled.
“We have one hope, which is that justice can be done and that Dany Leprince can one day be exonerated,” Mr. Morice reacted to the press at the end of the hearing. “I trust in justice,” Dany Leprince simply said, who was heard by the magistrates of the Court. Reviews of criminal convictions remain rare in France: only around ten requests have been successful since 1945 in cases of murder or rape.
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