It is a tragic face-to-face meeting between two men prisoners of each other. On the one hand, Joseph-Thomas known as “Tommy” Recco, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of six people between December 1979 and January 1980, first in Béziers (Hérault) then in Carqueiranne (Var). On the other, Guy Maurel, the husband of one of the victims, who refuses the idea that the killer one day breathes the air of freedom without having finally confessed. An abyssal anchorage in denial against the extreme need for truth: between Recco and Maurel, aged 86 and 69, it's a story of life to death. Nothing, however, should have brought them together. Otherwise bad luck and terrible criminal impulses.
By the late 1970s, Tommy Recco was already infamous. A native of Propriano (Corse-du-Sud), he has just been released on parole after seventeen years of detention for the brutal murder of a maritime guard who was also his godfather. After reaching 40, Recco, a former combat swimmer in the French army, is trying to start a new life in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). But the death instinct seems to stick to his skin. On December 23, 1979, Corsica killed three employees of a Mammoth supermarket in Béziers before fleeing without a trace with 700,000 francs (110,000 euros).
Three weeks later, Recco draws the same revolver, a Smith and Wesson caliber 38, this time in a pavilion in Carqueiranne (Var). After a quarrel with one of his acquaintances, he again kills three people including an 11-year-old girl, Sandrine Le Goff, who just had time to phone and deliver a decisive clue before dying .
Nicknamed Geronimo, for his airs of Indian chief
In Béziers, a witness marked by the memory of his sparkling blue eyes then certifies having seen him in the supermarket a few minutes before the drama. The material elements seem to overwhelm him, but the main party denies as a whole. "I am 100% innocent like Christ!" He exclaims, glance of embers and long hair, at the opening of his trial in 1983. The press calls him Geronimo, for his airs of Indian chief.
Guy Maurel's wife is one of the victims of the Béziers supermarket. Sylvette, 27, mother of a little girl, was obviously hit on the face before being shot in the back of the neck. But under what conditions ? "Out of respect for my wife, out of love too, I really need to know what were the last moments of his life," says Guy Maurel, a former municipal employee who converted to the rides. I want to know how Recco did it, I want to understand how my wife who was a cashier ended up in the counting room with her two other colleagues. "
To date, the two men have never had a direct exchange apart from a letter sent by Tommy Recco in 1999 from the Val-de-Reuil detention center (Eure). In this typed missive, the prisoner once again affirms "to have nothing to do with this unfortunate case of Béziers", but asks forgiveness to Guy Maurel, "if that can relieve your pain", he nuances.
"Recco never provided the slightest explanation"
"Sorry yes, but sorry for what?" Indignant the recipient of the mail. "Recco never provided the slightest explanation," continues Maurel. And he never paid a cent to the families of the victims. He owes me and my daughter more than 30,000 euros. However he owns property in Corsica and he receives a monthly military pension of 800 euros. However, this sum is immediately withdrawn by a third party. His insolvency is well organized ... ”
On the defense side, we recognize that this lack of compassion for the victims does not help his case. "Mr. Recco has locked himself from the start in a mystical posture which consists in saying at all costs that he is innocent of all the crimes of which he is accused, analyzes Mr. Alain Lhote, the historical lawyer of the sevenfold murderer. It is obvious that this does not work in his favor at the time when his requests for release are examined. Detained at the Borgo penitentiary center (Haute-Corse), Recco has already filed around twenty, not counting the three requests to suspend his sentence for health reasons.
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The most recent was dealt with last December, but the sentencing judge rejected it. She was re-examined this Tuesday, June 2 by the sentence enforcement chamber of the Bastia court of appeal. “Does Tommy Recco's incarceration still make sense? questions Me Lhote. Given his advanced old age and the health problems that go with it, even if he is still very intellectually alert, also considering his level of dangerousness, which is now extremely low, we think not. Difficult to talk about life plans at your age. But the oldest prisoner in France still wants to believe in a future in a village in Haute-Corse with Chantal, married in Toulon prison in the early 1980s.
"Honey in front of the magistrates, aggressive later"
"Contrary to what his lawyer claims, the level of dangerousness of Mr. Recco is certainly not negligible, retorts Me Linda Piperi, the lawyer for Guy Maurel and the Le Goff family. Even today, this man is capable of very sweet talk before the magistrates before being very aggressive again a few seconds later. For Guy Maurel, this mano a mano with the murderer of his wife could end in blood.
"Either the director of the Borgo prison grants me a visiting room, as I asked in writing to Mrs. Belloubet, and Recco tells me the truth face-to-face and I will not oppose his release, he envisions. Either he continues to deny and in this case, he ends his days behind bars ... But if Recco gets out of prison without telling the truth, then there, it will be a story between me and him. I'm ready for everything… "
Guy Maurel, who talks about the fight of his life, continues and warns: "And if it is not me who is directly responsible for settling his account, gypsy friends who live in Corsica are ready to intervene. Even if I have to suffer the consequences and that I too am incarcerated. A threat relativized by his lawyer. “To sincerely want to kill someone is one thing, to act is another,” says Piperi.
