Yvelines: a pensioner tried for having killed and dismembered his companion

UPDATE DAY

The trial of a 70-year-old pensioner, accused of having killed his partner, whose body was found dismembered and charred in a wood in 2017, opened on Monday before the court of Assizes of Yvelines. 

On August 31, 2017, pieces of burnt bodies were found on a pedestrian path in Vernouillet, about forty kilometers west of Paris.< /p>

It will take nearly two years for investigators to identify them, in May 2019: the victim is in her sixties, reported missing by her companion on October 16, 2017.

Philippe Marchand made his first confession before being put in examination and his placement in pre-trial detention in October 2019. He then recounted having strangled his companion at home, assuring that she was violent and jealous and had also tried to strangle him.

He also admitted to having used a knife and a saw to dismember the victim's body, and to having cut off the fingertips to erase his fingerprints.

The accused then transported, during the night, the dismembered body, in bags of rubble, to a wood in Vernouillet where he would have burned it.

During the investigation, he explained that he had sent text messages from the victim's phone to himself and members of his family, between his death and the report of his disappearance.

The retiree is also suspected of having used the bank accounts of the victim for more than a year after his disappearance. According to the investigation, more than 28,000 euros were debited from the account of the deceased.

Mr. Marchand and the victim had been in a relationship since December 2015. A former taxi driver, he had no particular pathology, according to an expert. He had a relationship with another woman before the disappearance of his partner.

The victim's son and grandson have joined as civil parties.

The verdict is expected on Friday .