Already sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempted poisoning, Olivier Cappelaere was sentenced Friday by the Assize Court of the Alpes-Maritimes to life imprisonment with a security period of 22 years for poisoning, succeeded this time, of a nonagenarian. The conviction complies with the requisitions of the Advocate General, according to whom this crime is marked by “greed”.
Jacqueline Imbert, 92, a widow from Cannet (Alpes-Maritimes), had become “his godmother of the heart”, as the 52-year-old accused, currently in detention, explained during his trial before the court of seated in Nice. But it was he who was found guilty of poisoning her in 2014, causing her death with atropine, a powerful poison contained in certain eye drops.
“Jacqueline Imbert died for nothing, only for the greed and venality of the one who killed her,” insisted the Advocate General, Christophe Raffin, before demanding life imprisonment with a security sentence of 22 years against the former entrepreneur, who was experiencing financial difficulties.
Already sentenced for similar acts
On the death of Jacqueline Imbert, Olivier Cappelaere had become her universal legatee and had inherited 600,000 euros, including life insurance.
And the accused would not in fact be the first act of this type. A few months ago, Olivier Cappelaere had already been sentenced to 25 years in prison, on appeal, for an attempted poisoning on another retiree, after having been sentenced to 20 years at first instance, in 2019.
She had drunk mineral water in which the accused admitted having diluted his dog’s eye drops.
“The premeditation is there”
Regarding Jacqueline Imbert, “he planned everything, the premeditation for me is there, there is no doubt”, had pleaded Friday morning Me Ariane Kabsch, lawyer for the civil parties, evoking the victim, a woman who ” had character” and “no suicidal desires”.
As for the accused, he would have in fact “bewitched his spirit”: “The elderly are so afraid of death and loneliness that they will grab the pole that is offered to them, but they are wrong and Jacqueline l ‘learned the hard way,’ continued the lawyer. In her argument on Friday afternoon, Me Corinne Dreyfus Schmidt, Olivier Cappelaere’s lawyer, had called for avoiding any “amalgam” between the two cases, calling on the jurors to “resist the comfort of the pre-established”.
Denouncing a “failing investigation, marked by a total absence of investigation”, and a “testing trial, held in an electric atmosphere”, she criticized the prosecution for having wanted “to distort at all costs” the agreement between Cappelaere and Jacqueline who, according to her, “was happy with this relationship”.