UA small hunched body takes its place in the accused box; Nathalie Bost puts down her choker and takes a quick look around the room. The jurors and the public stare at her. They have obviously read or heard what she is accused of: this frail young woman drowned her baby in a sordid setting, that of the toilets of a station platform. It was April 29, 2022 in Bergerac.
The first words she uttered before the Dordogne Assize Court, Thursday January 23 in Périgueux, in a candid, almost childish tone, ended up disconcerting the audience: “I recognize what I did, and today ‘Today, I understand what is being said of me. »
The 22-year-old Périgordine, accused of murder of a minor under 15 years old, faces thirty years in prison. The president, Marie-Dominique Boulard-Paolini, indicates: “The child was born alive, at the beginning of the ninth month of pregnancy. He was called Timéo. » An expert psychiatrist noted the etymology of this first name, chosen by the mother. “Timéo, in Latin, means ‘I fear’. »
Undisputed facts
A few meters from Nathalie Bost – and separated by the thick glass of the box – her ex-companion keeps twitching. With reddened eyes, Cédric Linares puts his head in his hands and struggles to hold his leg, as if seized by spasms. If he appears free, the forty-year-old is accused of not having prevented the crime, which is punishable by seven years in prison. Confused when he was about to speak, he stammered: “I’m sorry I didn’t call [aux secours] but I didn’t know she was pregnant. I am the only one who went to the cemetery to kiss my son. »
The sequence of events seems established. “It is not disputed that she gave birth in the toilet, nor that she flushed the toilet several times. The baby was crying and she took paper to clean her bloody shoes,” the president stressed. She raised the two issues of the trial: the notion of control in the couple (1) and especially the question of denial of pregnancy, “not all the experts agree on this question”.
Shock situation
When one psychiatrist brushes aside the hypothesis of a denial of pregnancy, arguing about the physical transformation of Nathalie Bost (in particular the rounding of her stomach) and the positive pregnancy tests, another evokes an alteration discernment at the time of the events. The latter specifies: “I have the feeling that on a physical level, she took her pregnancy into account, but not on a psychological level. » A psychologist moved the debate to the area of “denial of childbirth”, before finally excluding it. She elaborates: “It is a notion which has been studied very little scientifically. Women in this situation are in a situation of shock, and in this case the risk of neonaticide is very high. »
“What do you want me to tell him?” I’m not going to say bad things about her, I don’t want to push her.”
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Nathalie Bost – pink sweater, hair tied up – listens to the debates, passive. She knows that the experts encountered a huge difficulty in their work, sometimes biasing their analyses: her lies. She spoke to everyone about visits to a Bergerac gynecologist during pregnancy. Problem is, nothing corroborates his allegations in his medical file. “She has a sometimes complicated relationship with the truth,” conceded her lawyer, Me Réda Hammouche.
Parents’ testimony
The attorney general, Charles Charollois, expressed concern to a psychiatrist: “During your interviews, she told you nonsense. Is this a manipulative process or pure mythomania? » Experts lean more towards the second option, describing “a rather low intellectual level” and a “lack of ability to calculate”. What remains is the impression of an immature person, who would adapt his responses according to his interlocutors. “I doubt his words,” confided another psychologist. She adds: “But the regrets she expresses are not a facade. »
On the other hand, everyone agrees to depict “a deficient family context”. The testimonies of Nathalie Bost’s father and mother only reinforced this impression. “What do you want me to tell him?” I’m not going to say bad things about her, I don’t want to push her down. » Enough to arouse the first reaction from her daughter, the latter putting her head in her hands, in silence, after a day spent almost immobile.
The dad’s very clumsy support, full of omissions, contradictions and indirectly confirming his daughter’s propensity to lie, did not help his cause either and provoked Nathalie Bost’s second reaction: wrapping herself up in a big jacket in wool.
(1) It should be discussed this Friday, January 24.
