She had left everything to join a man she met on the internet. Before the idyll turns into a nightmare. The latter had locked her in a cupboard and tortured her for long weeks.
This is a particularly chilling criminal case which has been tried before the Montpellier Assize Court since Tuesday April 11, 2023. On November 2, 2019, a cyclist discovered on a road along the canal near Vias a body left in a ditch. He calls the emergency services, thinking that there is nothing more to be done and that the young woman is dead. Her body is covered with traces of beatings, she has a broken nose, teeth, several bones, she looks starving weighing only 31kg, and her body temperature is 22°C, 14 degrees below normal. Yet, despite her numerous injuries and broken bones, she barely survived. Betty then tells the story of the torture she has just suffered to investigators.
In September 2019, the young woman with a personality described as “fragile” at trial, left the family home of Châteauroux. She goes to the south of France to Agde, to a man, Jordan, whom she has met on a dating app. The young man of 22 years is quickly violent. He locks the young woman in a closet and begins to physically beat her. For 47 days she is tied, starved and forced to eat cat droppings to survive.
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An entire family prosecuted for this sordid crime
But the young man did not act alone, but with the help of his family. His mother and older brother Jason are also accomplices. Indeed, the accused’s brother would have participated in the physical abuse and helped him to get rid of what they thought was the young woman’s body. Their 48-year-old mother, who lived in the accommodation with them, would have let it go, without saying anything. Betty was traumatized by this event. Doctors gave him a 9 months incapacity for work.
The two brothers are prosecuted for attempted murder, kidnapping, torture or barbarity. The mother is being prosecuted for voluntary failure to prevent a crime. All three face life imprisonment.