"From light to decline": of a man judged for the murder of his ex-wife with stabs and hammer

This is a duality, a form of double -sided personality, which this Friday occupies the Assize Court of Versailles.Until October 6, the Court judges a man accused of having murdered his ex-wife on January 24, 2019. If he recognizes the facts alleged against him, it is up to justice to establish the reasons whichpushed to commit this act for which the parents of the victim still cry on the bench of the civil parties.

Because, barely three years ago, their daughter was killed before their eyes, at her home in Cernay-la-Ville, in the Yvelines.That day, Martine and Guy T. can be at Isabelle T. to help her do work in her new apartment.But everything changes when a man dressed in black, a masked face, interferes with her and assaulted him with 15 hammer strokes before grabbing his knife and knocking it 22 times "in an outburst of violence".

Pressure witnesses of this drama, Isabelle's parents try to end the massacre but also find themselves injured in the attack.The mother of the victim manages to warn the emergency services, thus putting the attacker whose gaze which she finally meets.She then recognized her stepson, Jean J.

Fragile personality

On this first day of trial, the courtyard is therefore interested in the personality of the accused in the box, hidden behind his white surgical mask, reddish eyes, pale complexion.On the one hand, Jean J., 50, is described as "deeply kind, affectionate", on the other, it is the portrait of a fragile man, plagued by depression and addiction to alcoholthat his older brother draws up, Michel J.

A graduate of Sciences Po, executive of the public service, Jean J. tries to erase his childhood punctuated by the violence of his father and his mother's stiffness, by professional success.He became general manager at the town hall of Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, where he flourished.An ascending journey which is added to the joy of having met Isabelle T. in 1993, with whom he has two children, Antoine and Clément.

But in 2014, "he went from light to decline," explains his big brother, when the town hall team for which he works changes as a result of municipal elections.Put aside and harassed morally, Jean J. Dark, "This is the beginning of the descent to hell".His past as a "villain little duckle", as Jean himself explains at the audience, resurfaces and overwhelms him to the point of trying to commit suicide.

"A feeling of anger overwhelmed me"

Embraged by the depressive episodes in which Jean seems locked up, Isabelle left him in 2017. "She tried to manage but it was not easy for her, reports Michel, the older brother of the accused. Isabelle had clairvoyanceto start divorce, but unfortunately it rekindled the painful image of failure in Jean. ""It fell on me like a thunderclap," he abounds.Unable to accept this separation, Jean J. multiplies abusive messages towards his ex-wife to whom he has an obsessive hatred.

He also rehashing the new love life of his ex-wife who begins a relationship with another man.Disappointed, dismissed, Jean J. does internet research to know how to put a person to sleep using the chloroform, he writes letters in which he pours all his hatred.He also buys a hammer and a knife that will serve him to murder his former partner.A preparation that he matures for about a month to end the days of a woman whom he describes as "always active, sociable", a tender, listening "wife.

Today under antidepressants and anxiolytics to silence his depression, Jean J. says he became aware of his act, "a gaping wound" which pushed him to cut the bridges with his two children."I don't want to pollute their current life, I stand for this posture so as not to rekindle their sentence."