It was the longest interrogation of this first day of trial at the Assize Court of Indre-et-Loire, where a 63-year-old man is tried for having voluntarily killed to Yvette, a 92-year-old resident of Ehpad, by suffocating her with madeleines in May 2019. The judicial police investigator called to the bar around 2:30 p.m., after a morning devoted to personality and life course of the accused, stayed there for more than 3 hours, under the fire of questions – and criticisms, too, emanating from the defense of the accused.
Everything you include in the findings is what the nursing home staff say – Me Bendjador
The policeman recounts the course of the investigation, the custody of the accused eight days after the facts. He admits having visited Yvette on May 13, having brought madeleines but claims to have noticed nothing abnormal, such as suffocation, when he left the room around 7 p.m. The death was confirmed by a nurse at 7:10 p.m. according to the death certificate. “Everything you include in the findings is what the nursing home staff say“points out Me Bendjador father, lawyer for the accused. He questions the attitude of this staff, who quickly proceeds to the mortuary toilet, removing all traces of madeleine before the police arrive. “It’s a possible crime scene, aren’t you surprised it’s been cleaned up?” he insists. “It’s routine in nursing homes‘ retorted the policeman.
Did the victim choke on his own, because of a “wrong way”?
Me Bendjador gets annoyed. “Either we are on the wrong track (abnormal passage of food in the airways, editor’s note), or there is an act by my client. If there is a wrong route, it is a supervision fault.“In other words: for Me Bendjador, there is no proof that his client has”fed up“Yvette de madeleines to the point of suffocating her in this room already cleaned when the police arrived.”Everything was turned upside down by people responsible for monitoring [la victime]” he concludes.
Still inaccuracies on the course of the evening
It is difficult to precisely reconstruct the course of the day of May 13, 2019. Firstly because the account given by the accused varies over the hearings. The nursing home staff claims to have seen him twice that day: at the start of the afternoon, when he brings the madeleines, and in the evening. Except that he first denies having brought the madeleines in the afternoon, before saying that he no longer knows. His presence in the afternoon is first yes, then no, then again yes. According to a psychologist, he is very shocked by his current situation, the accusation, the prison.
The testimonies of nursing home staff, reported by the police officer, do not really help to shed light on the evening which seems to have taken place in a certain confusion after the finding of Yvette’s death. Was she already dead when an employee goes to her room after the visitor has left? Or was she choking? Why embark on the mortuary toilet when already, suspicions seem to be born on the cause of death? So many questions that will be asked again this Thursday, on the second day of the trial, to the many witnesses summoned.