A 56-year-old Belgian woman who was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 for slaughtering her five children was put to sleep on Tuesday, exactly 16 years to the day after those murders, after which she attempted suicide.
The information, given on Thursday by the French-language Belgian media Sudinfo, was confirmed to AFP by Nicolas Cohen, Geneviève Lhermitte’s lawyer. In 2019 she had obtained a conditional release to a psychiatric hospital.
In Belgium, since a 2002 law, the medical gesture of euthanasia has been authorized to end both mental and physical suffering, as this pathology is “permanent, intolerable and insatiable”.
The patient, minor or adult, who is conscious at the time of his request, must also be able to express it “deliberately and repeatedly” and his medical situation must be considered a “dead end” according to the law.
“It’s this specific procedure that Ms. Lhermitte has followed, with the various medical reports that need to be obtained,” Me Cohen said, confirming that euthanasia had been performed on Tuesday, February 28.
It was on February 28, 2007 that Geneviève Lhermitte, a housewife with no criminal record, beat and then slaughtered her son and four daughters, aged between three and 14.
The five infanticides had taken place at the family home in Nivelles, in French-speaking Belgium (South), in the absence of her husband, the children’s father, who had gone on a trip.
This woman then tried to commit suicide by stabbing herself.
According to a psychologist interviewed by TV channel RTL-TVI on Thursday, Geneviève Lhermitte chose to die on February 28 in a “symbolic gesture towards her children”.
“It may also be up to her to finish what she started, because basically she wanted to end her life when she killed her,” added this psychologist Emilie Maroit.
This crime, transferred to the big screen by Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse (“Losing My Mind”, 2012), had caused terror in Belgium.
And the jury trial at the end of 2008 also had a major impact. Ms. Lhermitte had unsuccessfully attempted to use her mental imbalance to escape prison. The proceedings led to an expert dispute over his alleged criminal irresponsibility.
Beyond the demands (the Attorney General asked for a 30-year sentence), the 12 jurors finally ruled that the defendant had acted with good faith and intentionally and could not be considered mentally ill.
After her life sentence, Ms Lhermitte filed a civil suit against her former psychiatrist in 2010, seeking up to €3 million in damages for her “inaction” in the face of a foreseeable tragedy.
In the end, she gave up a ten-year legal battle without winning.
According to the Federal Control and Evaluation Commission, 2,966 euthanasias were carried out in Belgium last year, an increase of 9.85% compared to 2021. Cancer remains the most common reason given.
But for nearly three out of four requests, the patient presented “multiple types of ailments, both physical and psychological,” according to the same source.