He is the man accused of drugging his wife with medication, between 2011 and 2020, in Mazan, a village in Vaucluse, before handing her over to men. Dominique Pelicot is being tried alongside 50 of them, who are mainly appearing for aggravated rape, before the criminal court of Vaucluse. An extraordinary case, whose sensational trial opened on September 2, but whose continuation is uncertain, due to the state of health of the main accused. However, this is not the only case in which the septuagenarian is implicated.
The first case dates back to December 4, 1991. That day, Sophie Narme had an appointment, around 10 a.m., with a client, who called himself Mr. Duboste, to show him an apartment on rue Manin, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. Then she gave no more news during the day. Around 9:30 p.m., her employer, alerted by the young woman’s worried parents, went to the scene. He saw her car parked in front of the building. He entered the apartment, for which he had a duplicate key to show it, turned on the light, then discovered Sophie Narme’s lifeless body. “She was a young woman from a good family, aged 23, who wanted to get into real estate, and had been employed by this agency for barely a month.”his family’s lawyer, Florence Rault, told franceinfo.
Sophie Narme lies face down on the ground, on her stomach. Her hair covers her face. The man who committed the acts “bound her and then put her to sleep with ether”, “tore her bra, raped her before strangling her with the belt of her skirt”continues Florence Rault. “She lost all the rings she had on her fingers, signs that suggest attempts to struggle,” completes the lawyer. Her skin is “cut”she has “injuries”, she adds. “The attacker probably used a bladed weapon, probably a box cutter.” A witness saw it pass by “a man with a raincoat”, but the neighbors heard nothing, according to Florence Rault. For years, the investigation got bogged down. Until the pole cold casesdedicated to serial or unsolved crimes, created in March 2022 at the Nanterre court (Hauts-de-Seine), is seized of the case.
How did investigators track down Dominique Pelicot? It was one of the three investigating judges in the unit who made the connection with another crime: an attempted rape with a weapon, committed in Villeparisis (Seine-et-Marne), on May 11, 1999, on Marion*, a young woman then aged 19, who was showing a flat. The connection was made “taking into account in particular the modus operandi of the attacks and the context of the facts, both committed during an apartment viewing, the two victims both being real estate agents”the Nanterre prosecutor’s office told franceinfo. Both cases mention the presence of small cords. His way of undressing the victims, which is unusual, is similar in both cases. “What happened in 1999 begins like in 1991. We find the ether, the cutter and links”, exhibits Florence Rault, who also represents Marion.
“A man came into the real estate agency and spoke to her directly, saying he was urgently looking for an apartment. He was friendly and presentable: Marion was not suspicious. She thought of an apartment located nearby and took him by car.”the lawyer relates. The visit begins. Then the man asks himself: “Does my bed fit in this place?” “Marion takes her tape measure out of her pocket. The room is under a slope, she kneels down to measure”, reports Florence Rault.
“He attacks her from behind and presses an ether pad over her mouth. She struggles, he throws her into the middle of the room. It’s very violent.”
Florence Rault, lawyer for a victim of attempted rapeto franceinfo
“Then she feels a blade under her neck and can no longer move under the effect of the ether. She struggles not to breathe in this smell which makes her leave,” continues Florence Rault. Her client then manages “to seize the private parts” of the attacker, who releases her under the pain. She escapes into a closet, which she manages to lock. “She stayed there for four hours. Then she opened the door: there was no one there.”
“Placed in police custody and questioned on the request of the investigating magistrate”, “a man of around 70 years old, currently detained as part of a separate judicial investigation opened in Avignon”, is indicted on October 14, 2022, “for the murder, preceded, accompanied or followed by another crime, committed on December 4, 1991 in Paris and for the attempted rape with a weapon committed on May 11, 1999 in Villeparisis”, indicated the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office in January 2023. “When I passed the real estate agency and saw the young woman, I had an urge,” he declared in October 2022 in front of the investigating judge, according to a source close to the investigation at France Télévisions.
His DNA matches the traces of blood found on the pair of white shoes that Marion wore on May 11, 1999. According to the lawyer of this woman, now in her forties, Dominique Pelicot found himself, for an entire day, confronted by Marion, who formally recognized him. Backed into the wall, the septuagenarian admitted the facts, but denied having used a weapon and tried to minimize it.
On the other hand, Dominique Pelicot denies the rape and murder of Sophie Narme, for which no DNA traces were found at the crime scene. No genetic fingerprints could be detected on the belt used to strangle her. In addition, the samples containing the sperm found on the victim were lost.
These are accusations “based solely on comparisons”, denounced his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, to AFP in January 2023.
“My client’s position is one of absolute and persistent denial. He is shocked. We will fight as best we can.”
Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyerto AFP
Regarding the attempted rape, “The discussion will focus on the circumstances, we are talking about rape with a weapon, my client says there was no weapon”added the lawyer. The judicial investigation is still ongoing and the investigation is continuing. Investigations are also being carried out into Dominique Pelicot’s life story, in order to verify whether he is involved in other affairs.
*The first name has been changed at the request of the person concerned.