"It's been 16 years that it lasts, you understand Mr. President? I have been hearing the same questions for 16 years, I say that I had excellent relations with my aunt, I have had my peace of mind for 16 years ”. At the helm of the Assize Court of Angoulême (Charente), Alain Laprie, 64, gets annoyed at the end of the afternoon. Since the start of the day on Monday, this entrepreneur from the Bordeaux region has been on appeal for the 2004 murder of his aunt Marie Cescon in Pompignac, near Bordeaux (Gironde). Suspected of having killed the octogenarian after an argument related to his will, the 64-year-old man, a "sir everyone", surrounded by two of his sons, appears free after his acquittal in favor of the doubt in November 2018. The prosecution had appealed.
This Monday, it was the discovery of the body of Marie Cescon, 88 years old, in her charming house in the suburbs of Bordeaux, which was at the center of the debates. This March 17, 2004, the octogenarian, widowed for ten years, spent the day with his nephews, Sylvie and Jean-Claude Dalcin from Lot-et-Garonne as well as Alain Laprie. It is a beautiful day, it is "very beautiful" in the small rural commune of the north of Bordeaux, said a witness.
Around 6 pm, the nephews leave Marie Cescon, their "Tatie de Pompignac", who that day would have kept them well for dinner. Alain Laprie will say that he left Pompignac around 7:30 p.m. The sun went down and a few hours later, curls of smoke rose from the roof of the 70s pavilion occupied by the widow. Young neighbors, on their way to meet friends realize this and enter the house. There, according to their testimonies, they discover Marie Cescon lying on the kitchen floor, face down, a "hole in the skull", describes Julien, 19 years old.
The brown tiles are stained with a pool of blood and the dark wooden kitchen furniture is splashed, said a constable present at the crime scene in the first minutes of the discovery. At the back, in the house, where a corridor leads to bedrooms and a dining room, the fire crackles.
Inanimate, Marie Cescon is seized by her neighbors and extracted from the house to the side of the road, outside her house. The firefighters will not be able to resuscitate her, she has breathed too much smoke.
In recent years, she suspects him of "wanting only his money"
Quickly warned, Alain Laprie arrived on the scene. He is the “favorite” nephew of the octogenarian. She, who has never been able to have children, leaves him to manage his affairs, even if for the past few years, she suspects him of "wanting nothing but his money". With the gendarmes, Alain Laprie will insist on entering the house and retrieving documents. Later that night, the nephew will repeat his request to two other gendarmes. "This insistent request was surprising," testified before the assize court, one of the first gendarmes who arrived on the scene. Another, a member at the time of the Bordeaux Bastide research brigade, said at the helm "not to have remembered that he inquired about his aunt's state of health".
With these words, Me Frédéric Dutin, who represents Rina, the victim's sister, protested from the benches of the civil party. "What are you doing with your hand, Mr. Laprie?" ". According to this lawyer from the Mont-de-Marsan bar, the accused has just watched him pass his cleaver hand over his neck. "They cut my head off quickly," explains Alain Laprie.
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Because the accused has a more nuanced version of his arrival at Pompignac. At the helm, the sixty-something man in a dark turtleneck and beige pants says: "When I arrived, I did not know that my aunt had died". When he would have worried, "I hastened to go to my aunt and I made a sign of the cross […] a gendarme raised a sheet which covered the body and quickly lowered it, 'was everything'. So why did he absolutely want to go home? "It is not because I take papers that I am suspicious, still heating up my sixties, I knew that there was cash hidden everywhere in the dining room".
"I never made a confession! "
It is not the first time this Monday that Alain Laprie, however impassive, even in front of the photos of his aunt's body, intervenes without the President's agreement. When Me Christine Roule from the civil parties was already methodically reading the testimony of his uncle Bortolo to whom he had confessed, the Bordeaux resident had burst out: “But I never made a confession! "
Later, the nephew will apologize to the court: "I am getting carried away because I have been hearing false things for 16 years. After a dismissal in 2016, an acquittal in 2018, Alain Laprie is on trial for a third time until Friday.