A couple in their forties was discovered dead last Friday in their burnt down house in Autoreille (Haute-Saône). The results of the autopsy conducted since then established that the man had killed his wife before committing suicide.
According to the gendarmerie investigation, "the husband fired on his wife during the night with a sawed-off rifle, the 9 mm ammunition of which makes no noise," explained the public prosecutor of Vesoul, Emmanuel Dupic, at a press conference.
The two children aged 16 and 18 present in the house did not hear the shooting. Their mother, a 41-year-old nurse who worked the night shift, used to sleep in the morning. The next day, the 47-year-old husband took advantage of the children's outing to burn down the house and commit suicide with the gun.
"The reason for this act is perhaps a depressive state, followed by a radical decision," said the magistrate. The forties, who was no longer going to work, "also seemed very jealous, but it is not known whether his wife, 41, had planned to separate from him," he adds.
No history of domestic violence
The couple had lived together for fifteen years and had no history of domestic violence. "It is astonishment for the whole family" and especially for the wife's three children, underlines the magistrate. The couple had no children together.
Rescue workers were notified by the 18-year-old when a violent fire broke out in the house he had just left to go shopping. After having mastered the incident, the firefighters discovered the two bodies: the woman, partially burned, in her bedroom upstairs, and the man on the sofa, on the ground floor, the gun at his feet .
The autopsy revealed two bullet holes fired at close range: one on the wife's head, the other on her husband's temple. Three empty jerry cans were found on the ground floor of the house. The investigation, opened for research into the causes of death, was entrusted to the Vesoul research brigade.
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AFP identified 31 suspected femicides since the beginning of 2020. In 2019, according to the same source, at least 126 women were killed by their partner or ex, an average of one woman every three days.