Thirty years of criminal imprisonment, with a safety period of 20 years, were requested on Monday against Valentin Marcone, tried for having shot dead his boss and a colleague in May 2021 in the Plantiers sawmill, in the heart of the Cévennes Gardoises.
“I take responsibility for what I did, I will regret it all my life. I ask no one to give me less than 30 years, even life imprisonment. I think I have started to treat myself. I need to seek treatment for understand how much I have unlocked.” These few sentences spoken from the back of the box are those of the accused Valentin Marcone, who, at the invitation of the president, was the last to speak.
The 32-year-old man had been on trial for four days for a double murder. That of his boss Luc Teissonière and that of his colleague Martial Guérin, both shot in the head on May 11, 2021, in a sawmill in the village of Plantiers in the Cévennes.
After a little more than two and a half hours of deliberation, the jurors of the Gard Assize Court declared Valentin Marcone guilty of murder (without premeditation) and sentenced him to 30 years of criminal imprisonment, with half of a security sentence.
He was found guilty of killing his boss and his colleague without premeditated crimes. The court also recognized an alteration of his discernment at the time of the facts.
30 years of imprisonment with a security period of 20 years had been requested against the thirty-year-old by the attorney general. An exclusion sentence according to lawyers Me Hélène Mordacq and Florence de Prato. In front of the jurors and the court, the two lawyers portrayed a “solitary”, “hardworking” accused.
Valentin Marcone does not have the same social codes as everyone else. “In the village of Plantiers, he doesn’t mix, he’s not a hunter, he doesn’t go drinking at the bar. He’s different.
He is a fragile and frail man, incapable of expressing his feelings, far from the Rambo of the Cévennes, or the “survivalist” portrayed by certain media.
When I met him, he couldn’t put into words what had happened, I advised him to keep silent.” will explain Hélène Mordacq, the first lawyer to speak in defense. “From the start, he had his version of the facts which did not change one iota. From the start, he regretted, from the start, he had a word for the civil parties and understood that his action had been disproportionate”, continued Hélène Mordacq in a soft voice.
She will try to get jurors to admit that her crimes were not premeditated.
“If it had been premeditated, he would have stood at 300 meters and fired with crumbling bullets. Neither seen nor known.
Hélène MordacqDefense lawyer.
“He would have prepared his escape and taken food.”
“Valentin Marcone is a litany of DYS, health problems, suffering, failures, victim of harassment. I want to tell you how he built himself up and got to this tragedy”, will continue Florence of Prato still in defense.
She will take up the bullying of the former mayor, the fear of the gendarme and a fright which will lead him to wear a bulletproof vest then to arm himself. “He’s going to become a superhero with his shell,” the lawyer will add. She will in turn ask the jurors “to go beyond appearances to judge him, to take into account the alteration of his discernment” and “because he is not a monster”, not to pronounce “a penalty of elimination but a just sentence.”
Valentin Marcon should not appeal his sentence.