In the southern French village where she shares her sister's house, "Cathy" is one of those remarkable septuagenarians always ready to lend a hand – be it to the festival committee, for malnourished children in Burkina Faso, collecting clothes for the homeless, helping her friends with pet-sitting, or supporting one friend with cancer and another recovering from a stroke. All this, while caring for her very ill older sister, and having already endured her husband's end-of-life care.

The village was abuzz with gossip when, early on the morning of January 9, 2017, police swarmed the house and took "Cathy" to Paris, suspecting her of having played a role in the team that robbed Kim Kardashian on October 3, 2016.

"Cathy," whose real name is Christiane Glotin, stepped forward on Friday, May 2, to the stand in the Paris criminal court, where the group that has come to be known as the "grandpa robbers" is going on trial. With well-cut gray hair and a small frame, dressed in jeans and an ivory hooded jacket matching her sneakers, she carried her 79 years gracefully. Aomar Aït Khedache, 69, described as the "mastermind" of the heist, was once her partner. A second defendant, Pierre Bouianère, 81, is her friend of 45 years. (As he is suffering from Alzheimer's, he was excused from the trial.) And she knows two other defendants well: François Delaporte and Florus Heroui.

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