A 26-year-old man was charged in Reims on Tuesday with the murder of his mother, whom he allegedly hit several times with knives and a hammer and then tried to decapitate, Reims prosecutors said on Thursday.
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Prosecutor Matthieu Bourrette explained that this charge of “murder by an ascendant” was accompanied by a placement in custody, judging the facts of the case as “violence that was hard to bear”.
The autopsy on the 50-year-old victim revealed 33 wounds that could have been from knives and a hammer “found on site,” he noted.
“Some of the wounds, because of their depth, may indicate a desire for decapitation, which the defendant did not deny at his hearing in police custody,” added Mr. Bourrette.
According to him, “in one of the most important wounds, at the level of the neck, a screw almost 7 cm long was found” on which the suspect “pressed with a hammer”.
The inactive young man who knows “all the facts” was convicted of domestic violence back in 2018. However, as a heavy user of alcohol and cannabis, he was not under the influence of these products at the time of the events.
According to his family, “He spent many hours every day playing video games, sometimes violently,” the prosecutor said.
“He said he was very angry with his mother for over 20 years because he said when he was six she pushed him off the balcony and he was in a serious accident,” the judge added, a testimony , which is not confirmed by any member of the family.
“The day before the events, at 5 a.m., for reasons that are not yet known, he had a very violent argument with his mother and tried to push her off the balcony,” said Mr. Bourrette.
At his mother’s request, he had agreed to be “hospitalized free of charge” on the day of the events. He was not under medical supervision and received no treatment.