InvestigationPending a forthcoming in-depth psychiatric assessment, the investigation into the death of two retirees killed in an outbreak of violence at the end of 2020 by a 35-year-old man echoes the debate sparked by the Sarah Halimi affair on the criminal responsibility of certain murderers.
The astonishment ended up fading in Cholet. It has faded, like the flowers placed at the scene of the drama. Only plastic roses remain. And misunderstanding. It was six months ago: two retirees of 82 and 64 years old killed with punches and kicks, in the middle of the street, by a 35 year old man whose psychiatric follow-up had been stopped four months earlier. A crazy act. Committed by a madman? The question obsesses this city of Maine-et-Loire.
Exceptional in its violence, this double homicide is not without presenting similarities with the Sarah Halimi case, named after this Jewish sexagenarian defenestated in 2017, in Paris, by a man definitely considered to be irresponsible on the criminal level by a decision of the Court of Cassation on April 14. Delirious puff and anti-Semitism are also intertwined in the Cholet affair. No trace of cannabis, on the other hand, was found in the perpetrator, whom an examining magistrate indicted for murder and aggravated attempted murder, on December 2. He has since been imprisoned in a specialized penitentiary establishment intended for prisoners and defendants suffering from serious psychiatric disorders.
It is 3 p.m. this Saturday, November 14, when Damien V. leaves his apartment on the 7the floor to go down to smoke a cigarette. An interweaving of small pavilions, collective housing and SMEs, the Leclerc district – located a thirty-minute walk from the city center – exudes tranquility. Many retirees from the Thales electronics group, which owns a factory on a nearby boulevard, live here. So the Garreaus. Paul Garreau, 82, joined as a worker after his apprenticeship, ended his career there as a research and development technician. His wife Marcelle, two years his junior, worked in the HRD.
“I had to kill another person”
A ray of sunlight drove the octogenarians out that afternoon for an hour-long ride. The couple had not been out since the start of the second confinement, two weeks earlier. Their walk comes to an end when, 50 meters from home, they meet Damien V., “The dark gaze », Said Marcelle Garreau. This tall young man (1.90 m) then retraces his steps, and begins to strike. With the hands first, then the feet. Dozens of blows are raining down.
With his skull sunk in, his face studded with wounds, Paul Garreau died a few moments later, on the sidewalk of rue Eugène-Delacroix. His wife, left for dead, will survive after his hospitalization. The attacker has returned to his apartment, where he washes his hands and resumes his discussion with ” God “. Because it is he, God, who asked him to take a tour of the neighborhood, as he will explain later in the premises of the SRPJ in Angers. He, too, who told him the“Order” to kill “Unbelieving Jews”, according to his expression. The fire brigade siren outside brings him back to the elevator: “I wasn’t sure the couple were actually going to die. So I had to kill another person to spill blood “, he will tell.
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