The end of a difficult trial, of a case that marked an entire village. Jacqui Walter, 61, was sentenced on Friday to 20 years’ imprisonment, a sentence less than the requisitions, by the Strasbourg Assize Court for the murder of his wife, Sylvia Auchter. At the helm, he expressed regret and apologized to Stella Guitton, the victim’s daughter. “It’s deplorable, it’s clearly not enough,” she reacted. ” I am in shock. Of course the pain won’t bring my mother back, but that’s not normal.
“If I hadn’t been drinking, nothing would have happened. I infinitely regret taking Sylvia’s life, no one deserves to die like this, I apologize to everyone,” the defendant said. During the investigation, and again at the start of the trial, he immediately admitted to having killed his then 40-year-old wife on the night of November 10 to 11, 2019 in Oberhoffen-sur-Moder, in the Lower Rhine.
A complaint three weeks earlier
Drunk, he had stabbed him several times, causing four deep wounds in the neck and chest, after a violent altercation which had lasted “several minutes”, according to the medical examiner. The victim had “15 defense wounds” on the right hand, and 22 on the left hand. The debates revealed a “toxic couple”, two “dominant” characters, between whom the violence gradually “increased in power”, in the words of the Advocate General, Sébastien Pompey.
Three weeks before the murder, the victim had filed a complaint evoking “disputes and mild violence, as well as threats of damage” to a vehicle. Believing that the murder had been “thoughtful and programmed”, Sébastien Pompey had requested a 25-year prison sentence. Defense lawyer Sophie Schweitzer said the sentence was “just”. “It was not a prepared act, but an accident of life: he broke down after months of suffering”.
This feminicide had triggered reactions to the highest peak of the state: “Nobody can accept a feminicide. We owe all the transparency “to the daughter of the victim, had declared in particular the Minister of the Interior at the time, Christophe Castaner.