A man on trial for murdering his parents and ex-in-laws in 2020 was sentenced on Friday to 30 years in prison, with a 20-year probation period, by the Pyrénées-Orientales Assize Court.
Thierry Cahuzac, 53, was on trial for killing his parents and ex-in-laws within a few hours of each other on August 22 and 23, 2020 in Perpignan and Le Boulou (Pyrénées-Orientales), crimes that he confessed and admitted when he went to the gendarmerie, just after the fact.
Paranoid delusions
By special decisions, the Assize Court also ordered at the end of the sentence a seven-year socio-judicial follow-up including a care order, a ban on contact with all the civil parties (in this case his two children and his ex-wife) but also on appearing in the Pyrénées-Orientales as well as in all the departments where they would establish their domicile, and possessing a weapon. Finally, the court and the jury imposed a precautionary detention order in order to review his situation at the end of his sentence and decide on his release.
The mental health of the accused, who visibly experienced a shift towards a form of paranoid delirium in the early 2010s, was at the heart of the debates before the assizes, often disturbed by his apostrophes and provocative remarks. Two panels of psychologists and psychiatrists considered that his judgement was only impaired at the time of the commission of the facts and that he could therefore be criminally sanctioned. Another group of experts considered that his discernment had been abolished, a position that made Mr. Cahuzac criminally irresponsible.
At the assizes, he said of the victims: "I was the one who killed them, but they died of their wickedness." The only son blamed his parents for his unhappy childhood, he said during the inquest. As for his ex-in-laws, he felt that they had prevented him from seeing his children again after his divorce. In her closing arguments, the Advocate General had upheld the impairment of judgement and asked for a sentence of 30 years' imprisonment, with a two-thirds security period, as well as a socio-judicial follow-up with a <>-year care order.