AP
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Dominique Pelicot, the convicted rapist who horrified France by drowling his wife at the time so that other men could rape her, was questioned on other cases of rape and murder in which he suspected.
Pelicot is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty in December for the horrible sexual abuse of her ex-wife, Gisèle Pelicot.
His lawyer told the Associated Press that he was now faced with a questioning renewed by a magistrate inquiry specializing in the so -called cold cases – those who have been particularly difficult to resolve.
Cases of rape and murder date back to the 1990s. One involved Sophie Narme, a real estate agent killed in Paris on December 4, 1991. His lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, said that Dominique Pélicot denies any involvement in murder.
The other is the attempted rape armed with another real estate agent in the suburbs of Paris in Villeparisis on May 11, 1999. In this case, Pelicot recognizes that he met the woman and tried to undress her but denies the attempt rape, said his lawyer.
Dominique Pelicot is under an official investigation for these two crimes since October 2022 – a legal status meaning that investigators think that there is an accumulation of serious evidence against him.
Lawyer Florence Rault, who represents the family of Narme and the woman subjected to the attempted rape, said that a range of similarities between the cases of 1991 and 1999 suggested that the aggressor could be the same in both .
“You have to remain cautious. Maybe someone else has committed crime on Sophie Narme. But there are such similarities in the operating mode, in the way the victims have been approached – and the victims are also so identical – that we can legitimately ask many questions, “said Rault on RTL Radio.
The two cases were grouped into a survey in September 2022 which was taken up by the specialized unit for cold cases and series crimes. It works in the suburbs of Paris in Nanterre.
Speaking on his way in the hearing of Dominique Pelicot with the magistrate investigated in the unit of Cold-Case Nanterre, Zavarro said that he was planning to cooperate but that she did not know what questions he would be confronted with. She noted that he had been interviewed before in October 2023 and had admitted to having been in contact with the real estate agent in the 1999 case, but not with Sophie Narme.
“He says he is totally not linked to events related to Sophie Narme,” said Zavarro. “He always said that he had never met Sophie Narme.”
Zavarro said that Dominique Pélicot had recognized the investigators that he had met the other real estate agent. The lawyer said the police had found traces of his DNA at the scene of their meeting.
“He admitted to having been in contact with this young woman. His DNA is there, so there is no problem there. He admitted having had an altercation with her, having tried to undress her, but with different intentions of the attempted rape, “she said.
The cases of rape and murder occurred more than 10 years before the drug and the rapes of Gisèle Pelicot for which Pelicot and 50 other men were condemned – a section of sexual mistreatment of almost a decade of 2011. Drugs and guest other men, he met online to rape her.
Gisèle Pelicot has become a hero for many in France and beyond to have courageously demanding that the men’s trial be held in public hearing.
The evidence included homemade stomach videos of the abuse that Dominique Pelicot filmed in the couple’s retirement home in the small town of Mazan de Provence and elsewhere. The police then found more than 20,000 photos and videos in all, stored on computer journeys and cataloged in files marked “abuse”, “its rapists”, “Night Alone” and other titles.