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A French woman with a migration background is accused of participating in a barbaric killing of her Swiss landlord in the French village of Fédry, including torturing and burning him.
The 75-year-old victim, who lived in France, was found by a local fisherman near a riverbank with his body cut in half and with multiple defensive wounds on his hands. The body, overall, had signs of severe mutilation.
The 39-year-old French woman was preparing to return to her original country of origin in the Ivory Coast, according to police.
The autopsy found the man had died from hemorrhaging caused by stab wounds to the chest. In total, the woman reportedly stabbed her victim 28 times.
Investigators believe he was first killed inside his apartment. A triangular knife tip was found in the victim’s body, and when the suspect’s car was searched, they found a knife with a broken tip. Investigators say the missing knife tip found inside the victim’s body exactly matches the broken knife blade, according to French newspaper Le Parisien.
After the murder, she set the apartment on fire. Police have arrested the woman.
The woman was also found to be in possession of a pump-action shotgun that could fire rubber bullets and €6,000, which investigators believe she was going to use to fly back to the Ivory Coast.
The woman was living in a rental unit in the village, which has fewer than 100 inhabitants, and which was located near the Saône River.
According to Swiss newspaper Blick, the landlord believed his tenant was “disturbed,” and he had reportedly evicted her after he became fed up with her behavior.
The mayor said he is in shock.
“We will contact his family tomorrow, probably, to offer our support and deepest condolences,” said Mayor Yvan Pahud on Wednesday. “What happened to him is despicable. You only see this kind of thing in the worst crime novels.”
The 75-year-old man was a well-known figure in the community. A member of the Liberal Party (PLR), he had served for many years on the municipal council and had even chaired it, reports 24heures.ch.
He was also very active in the community organizations in the area and chaired a number of organizing committees, as well as managing an agency distributing high-tech products from the medical and industrial sectors.
The man first went missing on Oct. 31.
