Joseph-Thomas alias “Tommy” Recco, the oldest detainee in France at 87, was rejected Thursday by the Bastia court for the enforcement of sentences. Despite the age of the detainee, justice considers that the risk of recidivism remains present, in view of the very heavy past of Tommy Recco. This was the 21st request for parole rejected by the courts.
The octogenarian, detained in the prison of Borgo (Haute-Corse), was sentenced in 1983 to life imprisonment for two triple murders: that of three cashiers of a supermarket in Béziers (Hérault) on December 22, 1979, and that of a little girl, her father and one of their neighbors, committed in Carqueiranne (Var) on January 18, 1980. Murders that he has always denied, despite the evidence and testimonies that overwhelm him. “I am 100% innocent, like Christ,” he will cry at the opening of his trial.
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“Recco will never get out of prison”
A man, for whom the guilt of Tommy Recco is beyond doubt, has been fighting for years so that the detainee remains in prison: Guy Maurel, 70 years old, husband of Sylvette, one of the three cashiers killed in 1979 in the room safes from the Mammouth supermarket in Béziers. The day after his companion’s death, in the morgue, he had made her a promise: the murderer will never get out of prison …
Since then, this 68-year-old showman has only one goal, to prevent his wife’s murderer from benefiting from a conditional release that he is entitled to obtain after 39 years spent behind bars. For this he traveled the roads of France, at his expense at the discretion of the various prisons where Tommy Recco was locked in order to make his voice heard, that of a man unable to forget the brutal assassination of the one he loved.
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“Gypsy friends stand by”
“Out of respect for my wife, out of love too, I terribly need to know what were the last moments of her life, told last year to Parisian Guy Maurel. However, he was never able to be confronted with the murderer and the only “explanation” he obtained was a letter sent by Tommy Recco in 1999 from the detention center in Val-de-Reuil (Eure). In this letter, the prisoner once again affirms “to have nothing to do with this unfortunate affair of Béziers”, but asks Guy Maurel’s forgiveness, “if that can relieve your pain”.
Far from being satisfied, the showman saw red in the columns of the Parisian: “Either the director of Borgo prison grants me a visiting room, and Recco tells me the truth face-to-face and I will not oppose not upon his release, he considers. Either he continues to deny and in this case, he ends his days behind bars … But if Recco leaves prison without having told the truth, then it will be a story between me and him. I’m ready for everything…”
Guy Maurel, who talks about the fight of his life, continues and warns: “And if I am not the one who directly takes care of settling his account, some gypsy friends who live in Corsica are ready to intervene. Even if I have to suffer the consequences and be imprisoned in my turn. “
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“For 37 years, he pays us a franc… It’s a shame.”
In the pages of Midi-Free, Guy Maurel told in 2017 how he felt insulted on a daily basis, mistreated by the courts. “We, the parents of the victims, have rights that are violated. He had to pay compensation, let everyone be reassured, I’m not doing all this for the money, but on principle. But this man wrote to us that he voluntarily refused not to pay us. However, we are entitled to 10% of his nest egg. He receives 400 € of retirement on an account outside the prison and nothing is entered. For 37 years, he has paid us a franc, 40 centimes de franc, then a few euros. It’s a shame.”
“He is in a way in a retirement home,” continues the showman, who pays out of his own pocket a lawyer to represent him in Corsica. We take care of him every day. This is not the case with victims. Henriette Alcaraz, the mother of one of the victims, is all alone at 92 years old. I can not stand him anymore. She goes to see her family in the cemetery every day. Every day to see her daughter shot in 1979. She has no support. It is tragic to have to go through all this, but it is the lot of the families of the victims. They all end up in oblivion. ”
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