The Loiret Assize Court sentenced a 30-year-old man to life imprisonment on Friday March 25 for the murder of his ex-companion, killed by around twenty stab wounds in the middle of the street, in Orleans in 2018. The accused , Malick Sow, was imprisoned and found guilty of the
“premeditated murder”
of Lucie Mentucci, in her thirties.
The conviction was accompanied by a security sentence of 18 years, slightly less than the requisitions of the prosecution, which had asked for life and 22 years of security.
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The man, a legal recidivism after a first conviction in 2004 for murder, had admitted the facts during the procedure, as well as during the hearing.
However, he explained that he did not intend to kill the victim, but wanted to hurt him.
On May 25, 2018, the thirties had taken the train from Paris to wait for the mother of the family in front of her home, near the Orleans station.
He then stabbed the young woman twenty times, in the presence of her three children.
First in the lobby of the building, then on the street, as she tried to flee.
“He kept hitting her when she was on the ground.
What other intention can he have than to kill her?
(…) She flees, he catches her, she falls, he finishes her
,” insisted Advocate General Marie-Cécile Santin.
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“At 37, he has already withdrawn two lives. (...) Society no longer has a solution. (...) What other response has society to avoid a third death?
, explained the magistrate, to support her requisition.
The couple had a romantic relationship in 2002, a relationship that ended with the arrest of the man for the murder of a pizza delivery boy, amid a dispute between neighborhoods.
The young woman, then a teenager, had been sentenced by the children's court for failure to assist a person in danger.
The man, just an adult, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2004. He was released from prison in December 2012 on semi-freedom.
In their thirties, the two Orléanais had resumed a relationship in November 2017, before the victim let his companion know that she no longer wanted to see him.