The Drôme Assize Court delivered its verdict, after four hours of deliberation: Francisco Gonzalez-Ortiz is sentenced to life imprisonment, as requested by the prosecution.
A defense based on “shortcuts” during the investigation
“There is a doubt. There are elements which are wrong and which raise questions” defended Me Philippe Juchault, one of Francisco Gonzalez-Ortiz’s lawyers, “I am worried when I have a survey director who says this one was not very difficult”. Throughout their argument, he and the other counsel for the accused, Me Nadège Frandon, insisted on the anomalies of the case.
This is the first time that I happen to tell myself that perhaps, a gendarme said to himself: we will complete the investigation more quickly – Me Philippe Juchault, lawyer for the accused
The lawyers did their best to point out the inconsistencies in their pleadings: how is it that throughout the day of June 18, 2018, no witness saw him wearing the clothes that will be found with the blood of the victims? Why Francisco Gonzalez-Ortiz’s DNA is found on the broken window of the house, on the neck of the bottle – the accused admits to having broken into it to feed himself – but not on the taps that were open, the covers found on the corpses, on the knife presented as one of the weapons of crime? Why the ax whose handle bears the DNA of the accused was found ten days after the facts in an outbuilding of more than 30 square meters, which was not searched from the first day?
Among others. Doubts about the time of the crime are also raised.
He is a man who defended himself badly, because an innocent person always defends himself badly. A culprit has a head start – Me Nadège Frandon, lawyer for the accused
For Me Nadège Frandon, the gendarmes neglected other avenues, in particular those of intra-family crime. She returned this Wednesday afternoon to the complicated couple relationship, again the day before the murder between Paul Pastor and his wife, who reproached him for the time spent with Jeanne Lelong, and had even already followed him during his travels. The lawyer also mentions what she calls a “lie” of Jeanne Lelong’s granddaughter, who claims to have had her grandmother on the phone the night of the murder, while this call does not appear anywhere in the records.