Mind-blowing hearing in Nîmes, where Mathieu Danel, 26, is accused of murdering a hitchhiker in Sommières in 2018.
“How did you feel, sir, killing that woman?” asks the president.
“Nothing”, responds to the accused. At the Assize Court of Gard, Mathieu Danel, 26, digs with mechanical coldness his judicial grave which promises to be very deep. On June 21, 2018, near Sommières, he killed Claire, 39, with 17 stab wounds, whom he had hitchhiked to Valence. For no other reason than a curiosity that he says is experimental: to know what it feels like to kill someone.
“I wondered about the concept of death”
“At one point in my life, I questioned the concept of death, then mourning, then giving death. From the theoretical question I came to the conclusion that the only way to to be fixed was to take action.” At the start of summer, Mathieu Danel failed “in his professional life, sentimental and in studies. I had thought of a career as a contract killer, I said to myself why not, it could open up another career for me.”
It is nearly 10 p.m., Mathieu has led Claire down a scrubland path, where the young woman wants to sleep under the stars.
“When I leave, I open the door and I see the knife. Everything falls into place in my head and I say to myself: I’m going to do it” says this boy who then spent his time watching violent and pornographic manga. He made his parents believe he was going to work, and spent his days alone in his car, “a bit like in the Jean-Claude Romand affair” recalls the president.
“I can’t promise it won’t happen again”
He does not remember that Claire tried to protect herself with her hands against the ultra-violence of her blows, which show the fractures of the fingers described by the pathologist. “I had the tunnel effect, I was focused on the coming of death”.
“By murdering him in this horrible way, it destroyed us, my parents and my mother in particular. No one should see their child die” forcefully recalls Marianne, the victim’s older sister.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, I should be overwhelmed by what I did to you and regret it bitterly. But I’ll tell you straight: I guess there’s something wrong with me. ” he lets go before combing his hair while looking at the public.
And the more he talks, the more he freezes the audience when he talks about this “experience”. “I’m sorry it wasn’t more enjoyable. I’m going to serve a very long sentence for something that didn’t affect me more than that.”
The future ? “I can’t promise it won’t start again” he replies with judicially suicidal frankness. “I know that killing does absolutely nothing to me. I imagine that depending on the context, I could well act again.” He faces life imprisonment. Verdict tonight.
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