She had killed her former companion with eight stab wounds in Sarcelles (Val-d’Oise), just outside her home: Nathalie V., 54, was sentenced this Friday, November 3, after three days of trial before the Val-d’Oise Assize Court, ten years in prison. A sentence accompanied by socio-judicial monitoring of five years, during which, upon her release from prison, she will have to treat her drug addiction or risk serving up to three additional years in prison.
The court found that Nathalie V. had had the will to kill her former partner, Dominique, on November 15, 2020. They had met twenty years earlier in an addiction care center, had lived together for a year, before continuing to see themselves in a relationship described by everyone as toxic. The accused admitted to having suffered three stab wounds, saying she did not remember the others, assuring that she did not want to kill.
A life consumed by drugs
“The homicidal intent can be deduced from the number of blows, their force and their location,” the court told the accused. “Your personal situation was taken into account,” adds the president, who underlines the absence of convictions on her criminal record and “the fragilities which led you to not always be in tune with reality”. A formula to evoke his addiction to crack and the consequences on his personality which were discussed at length and which motivated a notable reduction in the sentence with regard to the requisitions.
The Attorney General had earlier requested sixteen years of criminal imprisonment, considering that the taking of narcotics and his situation of withdrawal at the time of the facts could not exclude his responsibility. She took up the conclusions of the expert psychiatrist, heard on Friday morning: “She knew the effects of taking toxins and withdrawal. We cannot therefore consider that these are factors that could alter his criminal liability,” emphasized the head doctor of the department, in accordance with the law.
But questioned by the defense, which notes decades of taking the product, she also recognized the limits of this position when it comes to crack, a devastating drug: “People can become paranoid. This can manifest itself in the whole range of psychiatric disorders, she continues. We see people committing suicide…” She also recognized that the accused “may have exhibited psychotic manifestations during the commission of the acts”.
“With crack, we no longer control anything at all”
Me Sandrine Parise-Heideiger, who defended Nathalie V., pleaded for acquittal. According to her, doubt remained about the intentional element: “Under the influence of crack, drug addicts are terrifying. In need, it’s worse. Crack makes you crazy,” emphasizes the lawyer. “I heard that she had the choice to take products, that it is her fault if she is addicted… But with crack, we no longer control anything at all. We just want our fix, at any cost. They are no longer individuals, they are zombies,” she adds, referring to the impossibility of truly treating drug addicts. According to her, we cannot judge crack users as we would judge a person who is in their right mind and questions the place of Justice in this matter: “We are at the limit, at the frontier of public health “.
Aged 54, Nathalie V. is a survivor after 38 years of severe drug addiction and a life marked by the rejection of her parents since she was little. A life described during the debates as a dizzying descent into hell. She has already spent three years in pre-trial detention at the Versailles women’s remand center (Yvelines) where she was able to successfully wean herself off, at least as things currently stand. She is closely monitored, taking methadone in particular, a substitute product. She flees groups in prison, works French, wants to put an end to narcotics and remains totally discreet. “I didn’t want to kill,” she simply confided before the court retired to deliberate.
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