Ulric Riboulet sentenced to 25 years for murder in Gradignan
A 27-year-old man has been found guilty of the brutal murder of his neighbour, who was stabbed 25 times. The Gironde assize court handed down his conviction to 25 years in prison on Wednesday.
Verdict in assize court
The Gironde assize court sentenced Ulric Riboulet, 27, to twenty-five years in prison on Wednesday 7 October. According to sudouest.fr, the Gradignan resident was found guilty of the murder of his neighbour, Véronique Boitard, who was stabbed 25 times during the night of 9 to 10 July 2022. The sentence includes a two-thirds security period, ten years of judicial monitoring with an obligation to receive treatment and work, and a prohibition from appearing in Gradignan.
Riboulet maintained his innocence throughout. "I swear 10,000 times," he declared four hours before the verdict was handed down. The defence pleaded for acquittal on the benefit of the doubt, emphasising the absence of the murder weapon, blood-stained clothing and gloves.
Evidence
Riboulet's black Asics shoes, size 42, bore traces of blood visible to the naked eye. They were discovered at the foot of the accused's bed. For prosecutor Philippe Vique, these traces systematically point to the neighbour and correspond to the blood-stained sole prints found at the scene. Vique had sought the maximum sentence of thirty years in prison.
The prosecution's theory
The prosecutor presented Boitard's death as resulting from an attempted burglary. According to Vique, Riboulet slipped under the rolling shutter of the sitting room, his hands gloved, made noise and killed the woman sleeping on the sofa so as not to be identified. The bloody disorder, which turned almost the entire house into a crime scene, would testify to an intentional killing. "He acts with frightening determination, kills with extraordinary savagery, lies with disheartening cynicism," the prosecutor concluded.
Defence arguments
Ulric Riboulet's lawyer, Grégoire Mouly, raised areas of doubt. He noted that only the shoes bore visible blood, while neither the murder weapon nor bloodstained clothing was found. Riboulet would have kept the shoes whose bloody traces leapt to the eye, whilst disposing of everything else. Mouly invoked his client's psychological fragilities, his troubled speech and ten years of psychiatric follow-up at Charles-Perrens hospital, which the three expert psychiatrists nevertheless did not judge sufficient to impair or eliminate his discernment.
The defence also recalled episodes of violence marking Riboulet's adolescence, all linked to cannabis consumption, describing the "collision" between this substance and his personal weaknesses.
Reaction to the verdict
The mother, daughter and ex-husband of Véronique Boitard received the verdict with the dignity they maintained throughout the three days of the trial. The lawyer for the civil parties, Niels Capeyron, had set out the victim's ordeal: a woman alone, stabbed 25 times in her home during the night, dragged forcefully, her clothes torn, bleeding in the corridor leading to her bedroom. Riboulet has ten days to lodge an appeal.
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)