Investigation. The decapitated hunter’s brother is convinced « there is a complicity »

Olivier Doire, the brother of Christophe, 28, a beheaded hunter found in a ditch on Christmas Day 1995 in the Allier, reacted Friday evening live on BFM TV to the indictment of his former sister-in-law in this ‘ ‘cold box’.

« I expected everything except that, I’m on the ground, I’m flat, » he said.

“My brother loved his wife madly”

Almost 27 years after the gruesome discovery – and while the slaughterhouse worker’s head has never been found – his 55-year-old ex-wife was indicted for murder this week. She faces a 30-year prison sentence.

After 48 hours in police custody since Tuesday, she was placed in pre-trial detention due to « serious and consistent evidence » and « incoherent and versatile statements since 1995 », explained Thursday Eric Neveu, the public prosecutor. She was « not necessarily alone in the whole process » of the murder, he continued, hinting that there could be one or more accomplices.

« For me, she was too frail, she didn’t have the physique to do that at all, » testified the victim’s brother. While the widow denies the facts of which she is accused, the brother-in-law says that he did not think « that she was able to do this and hide it for so long ».

And to add about the couple formed by his brother and Maria: “It was very strong at the start and then we saw that it was withering over the years. There was this little boy in the middle and we thought that would do it. My brother loved his wife madly, with an obsessive love”.

“We accepted the fact that she would start a new life”

The prosecutor had evoked Thursday the complicated relations of the couple in December 1995, the ex-companion having in particular tried to throw a hair dryer in the bathtub of her husband.

After Christophe’s death, Olivier Doire says that the suspect moved away from the family. “We accepted the fact that she would start a new life, she moved away from us and she took this little boy. We were trying to stay in touch. I thought she was trying to grieve and trying to move on.

Stating that he had never thought it could be her, he felt « that it is impossible that my sister-in-law could have done this on her own », he specified, referring to her physique but also to such a « machination »: « I am certain that there is a complicity ».