What life course could have taken Hubert Caouissin to accomplish such a murderous madness? This is what the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court will try to understand this Wednesday, on the second day of an extraordinary trial which is due to last until July 9. The 50-year-old former coppersmith of the Brest arsenal is on trial for having killed, on February 17, 2017 in Orvault, Pascal and Brigitte Troadec, as well as their two children, then having dismembered and dispersed the bodies. In a relationship with Lydie Troadec, Pascal’s sister, who also appears, he was obsessed with an inheritance of gold coins that the Troadec family would have stolen from him, which has never been confirmed by the investigation.
His personality, which will be studied this morning by the court, is described as “complex” by his lawyer. “He’s had pretty changeable moods for four and a half years. As the trial approaches, he has the will to explain himself, to be believed. I hope he will resist the pressure “, comments Thierry Fillion who” does not see a monster “in this father but” a gentleman everyone “who” did not intend to kill before the 17th. July “.
A “delusional paranoia”
The question of premeditation is not a priori an issue since it was ruled out by the investigating judges. Hubert Caouissin has indeed repeated that he had fatally struck the four victims, using a crowbar, during a violent fight when he had gone to the home of the Troadecs only for the to spy. But the civil parties do not believe in this version and intend to insist in the coming days on several disturbing elements showing that he “intended” to harm the occupants.
The question of the mental health of the fifty-year-old will also be strongly debated at the trial. During the investigation, two colleges of psychiatric experts in fact concluded that there was a significant “delusional paranoia” which led to an “impairment of discernment” at the time of the facts. Two expert psychologists also describe an “intellectual efficiency hampered by impaired judgment” structured around the “conviction of family spoliation”.
He confides in his 8 year old son
The accused, who had suffered from a depression which caused a long stoppage of work between 2013 and 2016, spent two whole days dismembering the bodies and removing the flesh of his victims. A grueling task “with a view to concealment but even more to canceling his act, giving the illusion of regaining control,” say the experts. In his isolated farm in Finistère, where no one was ever invited, Hubert Caouissin ended up confessing to his 8-year-old son his criminal act, even asking him to watch BFM TV “in order to follow the information on the affair”.
“Hubert Caouissin is a man who controls his speech” and “delivers relatively different versions,” said Cécile de Oliveira, lawyer for the civil parties, insisting on the “manipulative” character of the accused. It must be said that before being confused on March 5 by the presence of his DNA at the scene of the crime, Hubert Caouissin had undergone, from February 24, a first police interrogation, without delivering the slightest confession.
If the court considers that his judgment was altered at the time of the crimes, Hubert Caouissin, imprisoned since March 2017, could escape life imprisonment.