These are matters that are often referred to as family dramas. These fathers or mothers who kill their children, their spouse before turning the weapon against them.
This is what could have happened in Mazamet December 12, 2018. A 40-year-old man is tried for 3 days at the Assize Court of Tarn for having attempted these two children aged 10 and 7 and his wife. He is being prosecuted for attempted murder of his wife and children and faces 30 years in prison.
“Lucky you’re here, I was going to kill them all.”
The man, a penitentiary supervisor, has just learned that his wife wants to leave him. He has trapped his children in the house and is trying to strangle them. A chilling story in which the couple’s little girl tells about her father who enters the room and suffocates her with his hands. The 10-year-old does not understand, she remembers hallucinations then she faints. Her father leaves her for dead and enters her 7-year-old son’s room to perform the same gestures. The traces of strangulation are obvious to the firefighters and the medical examiner. But the gear stops when the little girl wakes up and manages to get out of bed. She asks her father what he is doing. And then the man comes to his senses for a while and calls the fire department twice. A first by hanging up immediately and a second, four minutes later, by really alerting them. Moreover, when the police arrive, the father of the family immediately says: “Lucky you’re here, I was going to kill them all.”
“If we can no longer be a family, the four of us are going to have to die”
During these 3 days of trial, the court will try to understand how a man described as calm, loving, taking good care of these children may attempt one night to kill them and attack his companion. In his depositions, the 40-year-old husband said he had surfed the networks all evening. His wife is sleeping elsewhere, since she has decided to leave him. He then discovers on Facebook that the mother of his children exchanges messages with another man. At night, the anger rises more and more. And it’s at 7:30 in the morning that he says to himself “If we can’t be a family anymore, the four of us are going to have to die.” He walks into his daughter’s room to suffocate her. A few minutes later, he also calls his wife to lock her in turn in the house. But it was when he saw his child finally alive that he pulled himself together and call the fire department. The man insisted during all his hearings on the fact that it was he who saved his children and not the firefighters. He should say it very regularly in court.
Traumatized family
During these three days, the mother and her two children will be a civil party in the case. “A traumatized family “ insists Master Jean-Baptiste Alary who assists the mother. The trial will begin this Monday at 9 a.m. at the Cour d’Assises du Tarn. It will last until Wednesday December 15th.