Carène Mezino died after being stabbed in May 2023 at the Reims University Hospital (Marne). The nurse’s family has just learned of a psychiatric report which considers the man indicted to be criminally irresponsible. Which would mean no trial. A second opinion must take place.
“Go and explain to eight- and eleven-year-olds that someone killed their mother and that ultimately they’re going to end up in the street, it’s hard to hear.” Adrien Mezino is dejected while speaking to our microphone, this October 20, 2023, the results of two psychiatric assessments which consider Franck Freyburger, the man indicted for the assassination of his wife, criminally irresponsible.
Carène Mezino died after being attacked with a knife in May 2023 at the Reims University Hospital, where she worked as a nurse. A fellow secretary was also injured.
“It’s a violence that you don’t even have an idea of. It’s the world that is falling on our heads.”
Luc Thibaut, brother of Carène Mezino
at France 3 Champagne-Ardenne
“Today, we have the impression that all this investigation and the file are not taken into account at all”confides the victim’s brother, Luc Thibaut, who also agreed to answer questions from our journalist Charlotte Morand.
Adrien Mezino, the victim’s widower, October 20, 2023. • © Paul-Antoine Boudet / France Télévisions
The alleged killer had hammered home his hatred of white coats. He had purchased his knife two weeks before the attack, showing some premeditation. But the result of this double expertise makes Carène Mezino’s family fear that the suspect will not be tried.
“There absolutely must be a judgment and an impartial judgment,” insists Luc Thibaut. “We ask that he be judged for the acts he committed. This will also allow our family to be able to mourn in dignified conditions.”
The 59-year-old man, suffering from psychiatric disorders, was under medical treatment which he decided to stop before the attack. He was already known for acts of aggravated violence. In June 2017, he attacked four people with a knife in the work assistance establishment (Esat) where he worked in Meix-Tiercelin, in Marne.
This case is still in the hands of justice: in a few days, the investigating chamber of the Reims Court of Appeal must also rule on his criminal responsibility for this previous attack. During a hearing last September, the prosecution requested the abolition of its discretion in this case. The suspect’s lawyer, Maître Chantal Focachon, also pleaded for abolition. The decision will be known on October 26.
Why was he free in May 2023 when he entered the hospital locker room with an eight-centimeter blade? “Obviously, the control of both the justice system and the psychiatric services which followed him was not what one would have expected from a man who had attacked people”says Didier Seban, the family’s lawyer, contacted by our editorial staff this October 20.
“For my clients, there is a feeling of double punishment. Psychiatry judged one day that he was able to resume a normal life subject to treatment. We did not verify that he was taking this treatment and he struck again and this time fatally”, adds the lawyer. He is surprised by the experts’ conclusions, arguing that Franck Freyburger “was able to answer questions from magistrates and investigators” right after the fact and “didn’t seem completely delusional”.
Maître Seban specifies that the expert opinions carried out in the first case are not attached to the file on the assassination of the 37-year-old mother. “One wonders on what basis these new experts – who were not aware of the analysis of their predecessors – can conclude so firmly to this. I have the impression that justice is being sausaged, that it is not does not parallel the two cases, that it does not bring together the medical elements.”
A second opinion was requested. The question of the criminal liability of the suspect has therefore not yet been resolved. Didier Seban also indicates: “It is up to the judge to analyze the expert reports. It is not the experts who decide, it is the magistrates.”
Diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic since the age of twenty, the suspect has been in pre-trial detention in a medical-prison unit in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) since the attack at the Reims University Hospital.
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