A madeleine as a murder weapon?
A 63-year-old former Paris firefighter appears before the Assizes of Tours from Wednesday until Friday for the assassination of a nonagenarian whose house he owned for life.
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Yvette Brisset, 92, resident of an Alzheimer unit in a Touraine nursing home, was found dead on May 13, 2019 in her bed, pieces of madeleine in her mouth.
The accused, Alain J. had visited him a few minutes before, bringing a package of industrial pastries from a famous brand.
He had locked the bedroom door, raising questions among the nursing staff.
Yvette and pastries
About ten days later, Alain J. was indicted and then imprisoned.
But he still denies the crime of which justice accuses him.
“
I am not afraid to go to the assizes, but to die before I can prove my innocence
”, he wrote in May 2021, in a letter addressed to
La Nouvelle République
, adding that the life contract is a “
one ball that I drag, which removes all credibility on the feelings that I carried to this lady, of a very great kindness, warm.
He assures that he regularly brought pastries to Yvette, "
as [he] would have done for [s]a grandmother".
The sexagenarian lives "
a nightmare
", abounds his lawyer Me Abed Bendjador.
According to him, the investigators failed to prove his client's guilt.
“
The instruction does not define the conditions or the modus operandi according to which he would have suffocated this lady with a madeleine
”, he noted to AFP during the referral to the Assize Court of Indre-et-Loire. .
If the autopsy revealed suffocation by a foreign body, probably of food origin, the forensic expertise did not make it possible to demonstrate the certain existence of the intervention of a third party in the death of the nonagenarian.
But her state of health did not allow her to help herself.
She only ate food cut into very small pieces.
An ideal mobile
During his interrogations, the accused assured not to have put a madeleine in the mouth of the victim who was, according to him, still alive when he left the nursing home.
Still, other elements have aroused the suspicions of the investigators.
The accused's version of the facts sometimes varied and he was financially linked to the nonagenarian.
The former firefighter had, in fact, a house of the victim, in life, since 1995. A form of purchase which did not allow him to resell the house to embark on a real estate project as he approached retirement.
At the time of the events, the former firefighter had contacted real estate agencies with the aim of selling this house and buying land in Bléré (Indre-et-Loire).
In addition, the man had recently increased the frequency of his visits to the nursing home, he who until then had only had a distant relationship with his former neighbor.
Émeline D., the granddaughter of a former spouse of Yvette B., who never had a child herself, will take her place on the bench of the civil parties.
She wanted to be present to "
humanize
" the name of Yvette Brisset, "this
person full of love, always listening and giving good advice
", she describes to
La Nouvelle République
.
Alain J. incurs life imprisonment.