It was a letter to the victim’s parents that alerted the investigators. The parents of Jérôme Gaillard, who confessed to the murder of his wife Magali Blandin in 2021 near Rennes before killing himself in prison, committed suicide before they could be tried, Le Parisien learned on Tuesday, confirming information from our colleagues from Ouest France.
Monique and Jean Gaillard, respectively aged 73 and 76, were indicted for alleged complicity with their son in this feminicide. “Monique and Jean Gaillard had chosen to bring the truth to this family drama and had been carrying the weight of the responsibility since the suicide of their son Jérôme alone (…) They will no longer have been able to live, even “And are” left together “, write their respective lawyers, Gwendoline Tenier and Olivier Pacheu, in a statement sent to AFP.
Placed in pre-trial detention in this case, the couple had been released three weeks after the suicide of their son, who hanged himself on the night of October 31 to November 1, 2021 at the Vézin-le-Coquet prison, near of Rennes.
They sent a letter to the parents of the victim
Under judicial supervision, the septuagenarians then settled in a house in La Turballe (Loire-Atlantique), where their bodies were discovered on Tuesday by the gendarmes, according to Ouest-France. According to the daily, Monique and Jean Gaillard would have hanged themselves after having sent a letter to the parents of Magali Blandin, explaining to them that they were going to put an end to their days. It was after receiving this letter that the parents of the victim informed the gendarmerie. “This file is sinking a little more into the drama”, reacts Me Antoine Ory, lawyer for one of the indicted in this file.
Jérôme Gaillard had admitted to having killed with a baseball bat his wife, a 42-year-old special education teacher, who had left him a few months earlier. Magali Blandin’s body was found in March 2021 in a wood a few kilometers from the husband’s home, more than a month after his disappearance.
The body had been located on the indication of her husband who had confessed to having killed her against the backdrop of an incredible “criminal plot” involving Georgian killers.
The couple, who were in the process of divorcing, had four children aged 4, 7, 12 and 14 at the time. Magali Blandin had left her husband in September 2020. The parents of Jérôme Gaillard, retired farmers with no criminal record, had admitted having helped their last son in his criminal project.