By "chance", a 31-year-old man admitted to having killed a watch engineer on Tuesday with a knife in his apartment in Besançon (Doubs).
He was indicted Thursday for murder "He absolutely did not know the victim, he had never seen her" and "the reasons for the gesture he says he committed remain very confused", explained the public prosecutor from Besançon, Etienne Manteaux.
The prosecution requested that he be placed in pre-trial detention.
During his custody, the suspect, known to be a cocaine user, "gave a cold and clinical description of the facts without any emotion or remorse," said the prosecutor.
The victim received 22 blows with a pair of scissors, including on the back, puncturing his heart and lung.
According to the suspect's version, the scissors belonged to the victim, who initially grabbed them to defend himself.
Thomas Mercier, 30, was "a size in his field", according to the Republican East.
His fault would be simply to have opened the door of his apartment,
Already convicted of violence and drug trafficking
Tuesday around 11:30 am, the police discovered on his landing the bloody body of this man known to have worked in the watchmaking industry in Switzerland then in Besançon. His neighbors had sounded the alarm after hearing screams. The suspect, already convicted of violence and drug trafficking, was arrested a few hours later near the victim's building, in a hotel where he was staying with his partner, placed under the status of assisted witness.
"We are faced with a person who has committed a crime of expediency, without apparent motive and highlighting an almost divine personality: he told us to be the reincarnation of Jesus in a first hearing", explained David Tognelli, commander of the judicial police of Besançon.
The suspect also admitted to intentionally crashing into a municipal police car on Tuesday before the crime, injuring a female officer.
Expertises will now be carried out as part of the investigation "to determine his mental state at the time of the facts," said Etienne Manteaux.