On December 13, 1988, the dismembered body of Françoise Gendron, 38, was discovered in the parking lot of the Trousseau hospital in Tours. Closer returns to this disturbing affair, against a backdrop of close friendship and unhealthy jealousy.
It was almost 35 years ago. On December 13, 1988, three garbage bags were found in the parking lot of the Trousseau Hospital, in Tours, and near a supermarket. Inside, the dismembered body of a woman. The police first try to identify him, but the absence of a head makes the task difficult… A few days later, however, the investigation takes a first turn. By telephone, an anonymous person tells the police that the victim is Françoise Gendron, a 38-year-old single mother who has so far had no history.
The identity of the victim verified, the investigators look into his life and his entourage. They meet Sylvie Reviriego, the fusional best friend of Françoise Gendron. The latter puts them on the trail of two men, with whom she and Françoise used to go out to clubs. She explains that before she died, her friend intended to report them for their involvement in drug trafficking. Without waiting, the police arrest the two young men, Michel and Luc, but decide to take a closer look at the profile of Sylvie Reviriego by searching her home. There, they notice strange little brown stains around the bathtub. They also get their hands on jewelry that belonged to Gendron. Nothing surprising, given the relationship she had with Reviriego, but the victim’s friend is still placed in police custody.
To “no longer see her head”¸ she put it in the oven
Well Named. After several hours of interrogation, Sylvie Reviriego confesses: it was she who killed Françoise Gendron. Like an open book, the caregiver reveals all the details of the day of December 12, 1988. She explains that she first went to her friend’s house, and tried to kill her by deliberately dropping a hair dryer in her bath. . Her attempt at electrocution failed, she invited Françoise to her home and drugged her with anxiolytics. Forty-eight hours of horror followed. After trying to drown her friend in her bathtub, Reviriego cut her veins with a scalpel. In parallel with the preparations for her son’s birthday, meaning having put herself in a “funny mess“, she then went to her parents, where she borrowed a hunting knife and a chopper. Back home, Reviriego dismembered her friend’s body on her balcony, and hid her head under a bucket. “To no longer see his face“¸ she will admit.
This head, she will hammer on it for three nights, until she ends up putting it in the oven at 360°, in the hope of making it easier to remove. To the investigators, Reviriego will tell of having thrown the remains into the Vienne. They will be found there, proof of the veracity of his sinister story.
Drug psychosis or unhealthy jealousy?
But why has a mother with no history lost all humanity in this way? First, the drug track is studied. Sylvie Reviriego, in fact, wanted to lose weight and consumed without moderation cocktails composed of diuretics, thyroid extracts, amphetamines and appetite suppressants. A mixture considered toxic and dangerous on the cardiac level, but innocuous on the psychic level. Thus, psychiatrists believe that the drugs have nothing to do with Reviriego’s madness. For them, the mother of the family went after her best friend out of jealousy. According to some reports, she could no longer bear Gendron’s “jeremiads”, his libertine attitude with men and his numerous demands for money. Moreover, she had, vis-à-vis her, a feeling of inferiority since childhood. In question, sequelae linked to a polio contracted very young, which would have earned him ridicule from his school friends.
In June 1991, Sylvie Reviriego was found guilty of the murder of Françoise Gendron and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, she has been on parole since August 2009. Thirty-five years later, police, magistrates and doctors still do not know what pushed the young caregiver, described by her mother as “the girl that all mothers in the world can dream of”to do the unthinkable.