Dominique P\u00e9licot, the convicted rapist who horrified France by drugging his then wife so other men could rape her, was questioned Thursday about other cases of rape and murder that he\u2019s suspected in. <\/p>\n
P\u00e9licot is serving a 20-year prison term after he was found guilty in December for the horrific sexual abuse of his now ex-wife, Gis\u00e8le P\u00e9licot. <\/p>\n
His lawyer told The Associated Press that he now faces renewed questioning by an investigating magistrate who specializes in so-called cold cases \u2013 those that have proved particularly hard to resolve. <\/p>\n
The rape and murder cases date back to the 1990s. One involves Sophie Narme, a property agent who was killed in Paris on December 4, 1991. His lawyer, B\u00e9atrice Zavarro, said Dominique P\u00e9licot denies any involvement in the killing. <\/p>\n
The other is the attempted armed rape of another property agent in the Paris suburb of Villeparisis on May 11, 1999. In that case, P\u00e9licot acknowledges that he met the woman and tried to undress her but denies attempted rape, his lawyer said. <\/p>\n
Dominique P\u00e9licot has been under formal investigation for both of those crimes since October 2022 \u2013 a legal status meaning that investigators believe there is an accumulation of serious evidence against him. <\/p>\n
Lawyer Florence Rault, who represents Narme\u2019s family and the woman subjected to the rape attempt, said an array of similarities between the 1991 and 1999 cases suggested the perpetrator might be the same in both. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne has to remain cautious. Perhaps someone else committed the crime on Sophie Narme. But there are such similarities in the mode of operation, in the way the victims were approached \u2013 and the victims are so identical, too \u2013 that one can legitimately ask many questions,\u201d Rault said on RTL radio. <\/p>\n
The two cases were grouped together into one investigation in September 2022 that was taken over by the specialized unit for cold cases and serial crimes. It works out of the Paris suburb of Nanterre. <\/p>\n
Speaking on her way into Dominique P\u00e9licot\u2019s hearing with the investigating magistrate at the Nanterre cold-case unit, Zavarro said he plans to cooperate but that she didn\u2019t know what questions he\u2019d face. She noted that he had previously been questioned in October 2023 and had acknowledged having been in contact with the property agent in the 1999 case, but not with Sophie Narme. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe says that he is totally unconnected with the events related to Sophie Narme,\u201d Zavarro said. \u201cHe has always said that he never met Sophie Narme.\u201d <\/p>\n
Zavarro said Dominique P\u00e9licot has acknowledged to investigators that he met the other property agent. The lawyer said police found traces of his DNA at the scene of their meeting. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe acknowledged having been in contact with this young woman. His DNA is there, so there\u2019s no issue there. He acknowledged having had an altercation with her, having tried to undress her, but with intentions different from attempted rape,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The rape and murder cases occurred more than 10 years before the drugging and rapes of Gis\u00e8le P\u00e9licot for which P\u00e9licot and 50 other men were convicted \u2013 a nearly decade-long stretch of sexual abuse from 2011. He knocked her unconscious by lacing her food and drink with drugs and invited other men he met online to rape her. <\/p>\n
Gis\u00e8le Pelicot became a hero to many in France and beyond for courageously demanding that the men\u2019s trial be held in open court. <\/p>\n
The evidence included stomach-churning homemade videos of the abuse that Dominique P\u00e9licot filmed in the couple\u2019s retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere. Police subsequently found more than 20,000 photos and videos in all, stored on computer drives and catalogued in folders marked \u201cabuse,\u201d \u201cher rapists,\u201d \u201cnight alone\u201d and other titles. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dominique P\u00e9licot, the convicted rapist who horrified France by drugging his then wife so other men could rape her, was questioned Thursday about other cases of rape and murder that he\u2019s suspected in. P\u00e9licot is serving a 20-year prison term after he was found guilty in December for the horrific sexual abuse of his now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}