The nightmare lasted five long years. A 45-year-old woman managed to escape, on the evening of October 14, from the house where she was held captive, in Saint-Molf, in Loire-Atlantique. Half undressed, frozen, she found refuge with a neighbor.
Around 9:30 p.m., taking advantage of a moment when one of her jailers was watching television, the forty-year-old ran to the neighboring house and knocked on the window. She explained that she was locked up and mistreated for almost five years. As part of the investigation, a 60-year-old woman and an 82-year-old man were indicted.
Unsanitary confinement conditions
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According to the prosecution, the victim lived in extremely unsanitary conditions. She was forced to live for five years in the garden and a garage adjacent to the house where the accused lived.
She slept on a deckchair, did her business in a simple pot or in plastic bags and ate porridge mixed with dishwashing liquid.
According to the Nantes prosecutor, Antoine Leroy, “she was prevented from leaving”. On site, the gendarmes noted that the garage door was blocked from the outside by concrete blocks.
Missing for five years
The victim explained that initially, she “lived in a shared apartment in the house with another woman” until the arrival of the man involved.
The neighbor who came to the aid of the kidnapped woman corroborated this version: “Five years ago, she lived with a lady. So obviously, we passed each other in the garden. Afterwards, we no longer saw her, there was another person who arrived,” she said.
According to the magistrate, the sequestered woman had “disappeared from the radar” since April 2022date corresponding to his divorce. “His bank accounts were no longer active except for paying large sums of money” to the defendants.
A psychologically fragile profile
The Nantes prosecutor said that the victim “is a particularly psychologically fragile woman and therefore in a state of vulnerability, otherwise she would probably have defended herself differently.”
“She managed to get out of the house sometimes but she kept coming back,” he explained. She “could spend entire days outside, in the cold, in the rain, and she also indicated that she was a victim of violence”.
The forensic doctor prescribed the victim 30 days of total incapacity for work (ITT). His body bore the marks of prolonged confinement and profound exhaustion. She was hospitalized with hypothermia and psychological support.
Who are the two suspects?
An 82-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman were indicted for kidnapping with torture or barbaric acts. The first, a caregiver, was placed in pre-trial detention, while the second, placed under judicial supervision, was able to return to his home.
The mayor of Saint-Molf, Hubert Delorme, described the affair as a “sordid story”. He confirms that the caregiver was known to municipal services: eviction proceedings were underway for non-payment of rent, with nearly 15,000 euros unpaid at the end of June 2024.
For his part, the octogenarian accused told RTL that he only played a secondary role. He claims to have been staying with the caregiver for three years, whom he describes as a friend, and claims that the victim “was already there” when he arrived.
According to him, the two women knew each other and worked together: According to him, they would have gotten closer after “couple problems”. Then, the situation would have degenerated. “They both got confused and then it took on proportions…” he explained. “It’s serious.”
Where is the investigation?
According to the Nantes prosecutor, the caregiver and the 82-year-old man “admitted part of the materiality of the facts but minimized them considerably”. In addition to “sequestration with torture or barbaric acts”, a crime punishable by life imprisonment, they were also indicted for “fraudulent abuse” of “the state of psychological or physical subjection of a person” and the “weakness of a vulnerable person”.
