Take a bullet in the head and escape almost unscathed.
At the trial of a Jehovah's Witness tried for an incredible assassination attempt on his wife, the victim described Thursday at the Assize Court of Seine-et-Marne his flirtation with death.
“
At that point, everything stops.
“The fine thirty-year-old with the air of a severe teacher narrates in a determined voice the evening of June 4, 2017, a romantic picnic with her husband which ends in tragedy.
Couple in crisis
This Sunday evening of Pentecost, Philippe Goncalves, 34 years old at the time, leads him to an isolated corner of the park of the castle of Champs-sur-Marne.
The couple of Jehovah's Witnesses is going through a difficult period: the business manager's flirting with one of his employees provokes the jealousy of his wife.
The meal taken, Philippe declares having forgotten something in the car and returns there.
Nearly a quarter of an hour passes, his wife begins to worry.
She calls him several times, then sees him coming back another way with bags.
From one, he takes out a perfume that he offers her as a gift, as a token of reconciliation.
Then "
he tells me he still has a present but he says to me
'
it's a surprise, turn around
'", says this hostess with long hair held back by a clip.
She complies but “
I wait, I wait, I wait.
I wonder what he's doing.
“Behind his back, Philippe Goncalves asks him to wait.
How much time passes like this?
Maybe "
thirty seconds-one minute
".
And there, “
all of a sudden, it's as if the light was turned off
”.
The woman doesn't know it yet, but she's just been shot in the head.
A yellow light floods it.
“
I feel like I'm floating, unable to move or see anything
”.
She hears nothing.
She does not suffer.
“
I have this semi-consciousness that makes me reflect.
I'm like,
“
What's going on?
”
.
I remember my heart beating very hard.
With my usual logical, scientific mind, I tell myself that if my heart is beating it means that I am not dead.
Then I pray.
Really, I'm asking God
“
what's going on?!
”
.
And at that moment, I regained consciousness.
»
Inner questions
Lying in the grass, she opens her eyes.
She is alone.
Only a few minutes have passed.
She puts her hand to her skull, finds blood there.
The pain hits her suddenly.
Her husband reappears and runs towards her, shot in the left shoulder.
“
We were shot at!
he shouts at her.
Philippe Goncalves claims that they were targeted by a mysterious hidden shooter from a distance, when justice accuses him of having used an accomplice to disguise his crime as aggression.
Supported by the emergency services, Ms. Goncalves was immediately operated on.
But the bullet did not perforate his skull: the brain is intact.
Barely two days later, she leaves the hospital.
At the helm, a forensic expert still cannot believe it: "
When you have a shot from a long gun or a pistol, it is quite exceptional for the bullet to come crashing down on the bone, make the embarrure (a fracture , note) but does not completely smash the bone
”.
Two scenarios: either the speed of the projectile was slowed by a failure of the weapon or an obstacle placed to muffle the noise, or the bullet came from very far away and had decelerated.
Read alsoJehovah's Witnesses: the terrible ordeal of Hélène, who says she was raped by her father for 13 years
Demonstrating on the bailiff of the assize court, squatting on the ground, the expert shows that the bullet comes from a shot located slightly above.
If the victim has long defended tooth and nail the innocence of her husband, his positioning at the hearing is more reserved than in the past, testifying to multiple internal questions.
After having carefully read the file and followed the debates, a part of her raises “lies
”
in the versions of her husband, another scaffolds hypotheses to try to explain them.
“
No matter how much I turn in all directions in my head, for me there is no logic in his wanting to kill me.
I am at an impasse
, ”she confides, torn.
“
Today I have no certainty.
Neither one way nor the other.
»
