Yvelines Assizes: maximum sentence sought against "Ma Dalton" for 1995 murder
The prosecution has sought the ultimate sentence against a septuagenarian tried for the homicide of a woman found dismembered in a trunk in 1995.
Yvelines Assizes: maximum sentence sought against "Ma Dalton" for 1995 murder
On Thursday, representatives of the public prosecutor's office demanded the most severe sanction under French law against Marie-Thérèse Garcia, aged 79. Tried before the Yvelines court of assizes for the murder of Corinne Di Dio, which occurred thirty years ago, this woman nicknamed "Ma Dalton" by those around her now faces a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
The same prosecution demand was made against Antonio Marquez Gomez, the deceased's ex-partner and the accused's former brother-in-law. This Spanish national, tried in absentia, is reported to have found refuge in Colombia according to investigations.
On 28 June 1995, the lifeless body of a woman, decapitated and severed into several pieces, was discovered in a metal suitcase drifting in the waters of the Seine, near La Roquette in the Eure. It would not be until 1997 and genetic testing that the identity of the victim was established: Corinne Di Dio. For more than thirty years, this case remained suspended, marked by two dismissals without further action in 2000 and 2008. It was only in 2012 that a fresh impetus was given to the investigation, following the interception of a telephone exchange in which a granddaughter of the accused spoke of having witnessed, as a child, the dismemberment of a woman.
For the prosecution magistrates, the accumulation of evidence gathered cannot be explained by mere coincidence. Among the key elements are two hairs discovered inside the container that transported the corpse. Mitochondrial DNA analysis of these hairs revealed compatibility with the genetic profile of Mrs García or with that of a descendant of her maternal line. According to the prosecution, no other person from this lineage could have legitimately left hairs in this trunk.
The hypothesis favoured by investigators is based on a custody dispute. At the time of the facts, Corinne Di Dio and Antonio Marquez Gomez were in conflict over their common son. The prosecution contends that the child's father and Mrs García – then in a relationship with Antonio's brother – killed the mother to enable the father to take the boy and take him beyond the Pyrenees.
The defence counsel for the accused strongly contested this interpretation and sought an acquittal. One of them, Maître Jérôme Goudard, denounced a "pre-established narrative construction" and regretted that certain lines of inquiry had not been pursued further, notably one concerning a previous boyfriend of the victim who held an old grudge against her. "Condemning someone because she is associated with other individuals would be an error," he argued. "In our law, complicity is not deduced from mere proximity."
From the dock, the elderly woman has continuously proclaimed her innocence, making numerous gestures and expressions towards her granddaughter Jessica, present in the public gallery.
Source: Le Figaro and Le Dauphiné Libéré
Source: Le Figaro