Francisco Gonzalez Ortiz, long hair towards the back, long and broad gray beard, attentively follows the debates. The eyes are sharp, and scrutinize all the speakers. He speaks only Spanish, an interpreter translates the exchanges, the questions, his answers. The trial of this 62-year-old Spanish homeless man began this Friday before the Assize Court of Drôme, almost three and a half years later the double murder of Saint-Marcel-lès-Sauzet. Jeanne Lelong, 84, and her companion, Paul Pastor, 67, were massacred, with ax and knife in particular, on the evening of June 18, 2018.
I am innocent. Me alone, I could not have done what I am accused of. I never killed anyone
The personality of the accused in the debate
The reconstruction of the life of Francisco Gonzalez Ortiz is “laborious” agree to say the public prosecutor and the expert psychologist heard this Friday. Information is often unverifiable. The man recounted during the investigation – and repeated in court sometimes confusedly – his childhood, a “hell”. Born in prison in Spain, of a mother convicted of complicity in the theft of food, he explains, and of a gypsy father arrested under Francoism and died in detention. A violent stepfather, and very quickly the street as an alternative.
The few members of his family with whom he could have contact have died. Francisco Gonzalez Ortiz says he has four children, two of whom are unrecognized. Also a “woman of his life”, with whom he lived two happy years, until she died of cancer in June 2017.
If I had been peaceful I wouldn’t have survived in Spanish prisons
He spent 38 years in prison, if we cumulate our sentences. Eleven convictions in total, all in Spain. One of them following an attempted murder with a knife on a fellow inmate in the late 1980s.he crossed the French border on June 11, 2018 – the police survey on the telephone allows this precision – it is to reach Paris on foot, to start a life again, without its heavy past. The gendarmes define its route, following the A9, then the A7.
On June 18, 2018, the accused admitted to having entered the house of Jeanne Lelong in Saint-Marcel-lès-Sauzet, by breaking and entering, hence the presence of his DNA at the window whose glass was broken. He says he wanted to eat, and then left, without having seen the owners.
Conspiracy and persecution
Francisco Gonzalez Ortiz describes himself as “good and not violent”. He challenges his past convictions, explains to be the victim; evokes confessions that were obtained from him at the time, under torture. Even goes so far as to justify an escape from a Spanish prison because “the door was open”.
Sometimes the details are muddled and don’t match what comes out of his auditions. He regularly answers questions from civil party lawyers, or those of the Advocate General, and tends to systematically deny what he is accused of.
“He is convinced that the police killed them, that he is blamed” explains court psychologist Robert Dubanchet. Their interview took place in January 2019, six months after the double murder of Saint-Marcel-lès-Sauzet. When referring to the facts, the expert said he perceived a “very strong internal psychic tension” at Francisco Gonzalez Ortiz, and even admits to be “felt in danger. It’s exceedingly rare that I feel that. “
The trial continues Monday 8, until Wednesday 10 November.