On May 11, 2021, Valentin Marcone arrives at work, at the Plantiers sawmill, in the heart of the Cévennes. A simple remark and he kills his boss, then a colleague. A double murder for which this thirty-year-old will be tried from Wednesday to Monday this week.
Stroke of madness, premeditated crime? The investigators retained the second hypothesis and it is for assassinations that this man described as a “lone wolf”.
Three years after the events, the families affected by this tragedy still live in Les Plantiers, a village of 250 inhabitants clinging to the slopes of Mont Aigoual. And when Fiona Cavalier, widow of the former boss, meets Blandine Court, the wife of the murderer, they do not speak to each other but smile and nod at each other.
Nestled below the hamlet, the Scierie Teissonnière is still there. “Temporarily closed,” indicated a sheet pinned to the gate at the end of last week. At the top of a gravel path, the shed houses several sawing lines and chestnut boards, the specialty of the establishment founded in 1992 by Luc Teissonnière and now waiting for a buyer.
Luc, a local child, passionate about the forest and woodworking, was 54 years old. His wife, who had temporarily taken over management of the sawmill, expects nothing from the trial. All of this “won’t change much” since his life has already “toggled” three years ago: “We know that he is guilty and that he will undoubtedly appeal the sentence, that’s it”she explained to AFP, a few days before the hearing.
Pharmacy technician, mother of two grown children, she cannot see herself living anywhere other than Les Plantiers, a Protestant stronghold and cradle of her family: “The Huguenots are used to living alongside their dead.”
At the trial “de Marcone”, whose first name she never mentions, Fiona will be alongside Camille Desort, the companion of Martial Guérin, the other victim, then aged 32. And Vincent Amalric, the other worker present that day, the key witness.
“Paranoid-like behavior” –
At 19, Vincent was the youngest at the sawmill. “Luc died here, Martial next door”, explained the young man to AFP, pointing to a place on the factory floor. The trigger ? A remark from the boss to his employee, who would not have said hello. “Then he pointed at me, and it came out on its own, I told him: ‘Don’t kill me’. He replied, ‘No, no, I won’t do anything to you'” .
29 years old at the time of the events, Valentin Marcone fled into the Cévennes forest, heavily armed and in camouflage clothing. This fan of hunting and sports shooting holed up for three days in a wild boar hole, 600 m from the village, hunted by more than 350 gendarmes, helicopters, drones and dogs. “He’s a lone wolf, (…) he wants to play Rambo”had warned the president of the Plantiers hunters.
If the accused admitted the double murder, he denied any premeditation, presenting himself as a victim who would have responded to a “accumulation of bullying”.
An employee of the sawmill for about a year, Valentin Marcone was in conflict with his employer, particularly over overtime issues, and he had recently demonstrated “paranoid-type behavior”, according to investigators. For several days the accused had been coming to work with a bulletproof vest hidden under his overalls.
“We didn’t see anything coming”remembers Vincent Amalric, referring to a colleague who was certainly not very friendly, but never aggressive.
Married to a girl from the village and father of a one-year-old girl, the accused had been described by the Alès prosecutor as a “very particular personality, very litigious”. Unknown to the courts for violence, he had nevertheless made headlines with multiple proceedings targeting the town hall, his ex-employer.
According to the expert psychiatrist, his “sensitive personality would make it possible to characterize a disorder having impaired one’s discernment and control of one’s actions”.
2024-01-22 06:34:57
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