The bodies of the two girls were found on June 10, 2018 in one of the apartments in the Limonest barracks, near Lyon. Dead, suffocated. Three and a half years later, their 41-year-old mother will be tried from this Tuesday before the assizes in the Rhône for “murder”. This policewoman, having no criminal record, is suspected of having killed them, which she has always denied. The small victims were between 3 and 5 years old at the time.
It was the father of the children, a non-commissioned officer in the territorial brigade, who had made the macabre discovery when he returned from a sports weekend. The little girls were each in their beds.
The poisoning thesis dismissed
The autopsies had failed to determine the cause of the death of the two children. The first sources had mentioned the possibility of poisoning by their mother, in the process of separation with her husband. But the forensic examinations, carried out subsequently, had concluded in death by “mechanical asphyxia” and “asphyxia syndrome”. In two stages: the night for the first victim and the following afternoon for the second. During this weekend, neither the brother of the accused, nor her sister-in-law, had noticed anything in particular while visiting the mother.
Regarding the circumstances of this double infanticide, which had aroused great emotion in the town and in the ranks of the gendarmerie, gray areas remain which risk causing great tension during the debates.
“The exact cause of death is not established with certainty”
“The mother was immediately described as bipolar, and even alcoholic, but all this has been completely ruled out by psychiatric and scientific expertises”, underline the defense lawyers, Me Alexandre Plantevin and Me Javotte de Brem, who dispute the overwhelming portrait of an infanticide mother.
For them, “the exact cause of death is not established with certainty. All avenues have not been seriously explored, ”they say, referring to the fact that the two girls were sick and had consulted a doctor shortly before the facts.
The trial should also explore the family climate at the time to try to shed light on what could have been tied up around the children: a bad understanding of the couple mainly for which the reasons given are divergent on each side of the bar.
The mother, who has no criminal record, will appear in custody. The verdict is expected Friday.