The 37-year-old man suspected of having beheaded his 85-year-old grandfather in Vaucluse was under long-term psychiatric monitoring and was interned after his arrest, the Carpentras prosecutor said on Thursday during ‘a press conference.
Hospitalized in the psychiatric hospital
The suspect’s state of mental health “was not compatible with a custody measure,” said the prosecutor, Pierre Gagnoud. Wednesday, after an arrest “without incident”, “he was hospitalized at the psychiatric hospital of Monfavet (Avignon), under guard”, he added.
The prosecutor did not give any indication as to the reasons which prompted this man, whose identity was not disclosed, to kill his grandfather in Bollène (Vaucluse), to behead him and to inflict very significant chest lesions.
But he drew up a first robot portrait of the suspect, arrested shortly before midnight in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, in the Drôme, “two kilometers from the place where the facts occurred”.
Shirtless and barefoot, “haggard”, the man had knocked on a couple’s window to ask for food and drink, which had enabled the police, deployed in force, to stop him. quickly. He was unarmed and made no resistance, said the prosecutor, according to whom the man had been able to “hide” for several hours in this area near the cave village of Barry.
His grandfather was one of his psychological supports
“The first elements of the investigation seem to establish that the individual had been the subject of psychiatric follow-up for many years”, with several compulsory internships, as well as home follow-up, explained Mr. Gagnoud.
“The judicial information which will be opened will have to retrace the chronology of its care over the last years, to measure the degree of responsibility at the time of the facts”, he added.
The man, whose grandfather was a “support”, had no criminal record but several procedures attest to “use of narcotics”, also indicated the prosecutor of Carpentras, who had ruled out on Wednesday evening the terrorist trail.
“We will know more after the autopsy on the type of utensil, weapon, used to take the life of the victim, but also to attack her under the conditions mentioned”, he also indicated.