Criminal affair...
Feb. 14th, 2013 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yami_samuraifloRecently, a TV chain started to diffuse a series of documentaries on criminal cases, sorting them by regions. I watched one by curiosity, since I had heard they were supposed to speak of some in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
I had to grimace, though, when I recognized my hometown on the screen. There were a couple of views from the Police Station, some of the main avenues, and also the river coursing through the town. We could even see part of my old school. I was a bit amused, at first, I have to admit, because I was trying to guess and see where exactly they had filmed. But then I got reminded of why exactly they were filming the town.
Hadn't expected to see them like that. I shouldn't have been surprised, though. They were mainly speaking about recent criminal cases, and one of them was the Typhaine case. It wasn't a pleasant history.
In June 2009, a mother, Anne-Sophie Faucheur, reported the disparition of her daughter Typhaine during a town festival. She had supposedly lost sight of the child and was frantic about finding her again.
The disparition was first thought to be an accident; it was suspected the girl, five years old, could have fallen into the Sambre, the local river, which was nearby from the last place she had been sighted by her mother. However, as the divers found nothing, the police began to fear Typhaine had been kidnapped by a pedophile. A very strong fear in the region since Marc Dutroux in the middle of the 90s; Maubeuge, my hometown, isn't very far from Belgium, after all.
For months, the police tried to find the kid, while the mother and her companion talked to the medias and begged for the return of their daughter/step-daughter on national television.
The truth of the matter was finally learnt at the start of December 2009. Suspicious of her behavior, which didn't reflect exactly what the police forces and reporters thought of a grieving mother, they started to suspect she was hidding something. Several things tipped them off, like the fact Typhaine wasn't here for her baby sister's baptism, a few days before her official disparition.
Faucheur and her companion were finally arrested and confessed. Typhaine was dead. She had been dead for at least a week before her mother finally signaled she was 'missing'. And during that week, she had been kept in the house's cellar, until Nicolas Willot, her mother's lover, finally buried her corpse in Belgium. The little girl had been abused for months (ever since her mother basically kidnapped her from her father's care), until one of the couple 'punishment' went too far. And they hid her and lied again and again, manipulating the country for months.
The documentary was recent, but not complete, though it hinted at the future trial. Actually, Anne-Sophie Faucheur and Nicolas Willot were finally judged a few weeks ago; they were both sentenced to thirty years in prison, and will not be allowed parole until they served at least twenty years.
*sighs*
I'll never understand how parents can do that to their own children. Death penalty isn't applied in France anymore, and in general, I approve. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if it was such a bad thing...
I had to grimace, though, when I recognized my hometown on the screen. There were a couple of views from the Police Station, some of the main avenues, and also the river coursing through the town. We could even see part of my old school. I was a bit amused, at first, I have to admit, because I was trying to guess and see where exactly they had filmed. But then I got reminded of why exactly they were filming the town.
Hadn't expected to see them like that. I shouldn't have been surprised, though. They were mainly speaking about recent criminal cases, and one of them was the Typhaine case. It wasn't a pleasant history.
In June 2009, a mother, Anne-Sophie Faucheur, reported the disparition of her daughter Typhaine during a town festival. She had supposedly lost sight of the child and was frantic about finding her again.
The disparition was first thought to be an accident; it was suspected the girl, five years old, could have fallen into the Sambre, the local river, which was nearby from the last place she had been sighted by her mother. However, as the divers found nothing, the police began to fear Typhaine had been kidnapped by a pedophile. A very strong fear in the region since Marc Dutroux in the middle of the 90s; Maubeuge, my hometown, isn't very far from Belgium, after all.
For months, the police tried to find the kid, while the mother and her companion talked to the medias and begged for the return of their daughter/step-daughter on national television.
The truth of the matter was finally learnt at the start of December 2009. Suspicious of her behavior, which didn't reflect exactly what the police forces and reporters thought of a grieving mother, they started to suspect she was hidding something. Several things tipped them off, like the fact Typhaine wasn't here for her baby sister's baptism, a few days before her official disparition.
Faucheur and her companion were finally arrested and confessed. Typhaine was dead. She had been dead for at least a week before her mother finally signaled she was 'missing'. And during that week, she had been kept in the house's cellar, until Nicolas Willot, her mother's lover, finally buried her corpse in Belgium. The little girl had been abused for months (ever since her mother basically kidnapped her from her father's care), until one of the couple 'punishment' went too far. And they hid her and lied again and again, manipulating the country for months.
The documentary was recent, but not complete, though it hinted at the future trial. Actually, Anne-Sophie Faucheur and Nicolas Willot were finally judged a few weeks ago; they were both sentenced to thirty years in prison, and will not be allowed parole until they served at least twenty years.
*sighs*
I'll never understand how parents can do that to their own children. Death penalty isn't applied in France anymore, and in general, I approve. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if it was such a bad thing...
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no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 09:31 pm (UTC)Is that so? I would have though the laws were more severe when it came to people abusing children or elderly people. There're not always able to defend themselves, so who will look out for them if it doesn't?
no subject
Date: 2013-02-14 09:38 pm (UTC)