Frenchman Dominique Pelicot, 72, who was sentenced in December to 20 years imprisonment for aggravated rape, as he had organized the rape of his then-wife, Gisèle Pelicot, by dozens of strangers, was being questioned on Thursday, January 30, by an investigating magistrate over a 1991 case of rape and murder in Paris, and a 1999 attempted rape in the region, his lawyer Béatrice Zavarro said.
She said the investigation, being handled by a unit in the Paris suburb of Nanterre dedicated to "cold cases," had been going on since October 2022 and that Pelicot had already been interrogated in October 2023.
He has denied involvement in the 1991 rape and murder case, but has admitted to the 1999 attempted rape after he was identified via his DNA. However, on Thursday, Zavarro said: "It's a very partial admission."
These dates are well before the near decade, from 2011 to 2020, during which Pelicot invited dozens of strangers, whom he had recruited online, to his home in the town of Mazan, in southern France, to rape his heavily sedated wife Gisèle. The 20-year gap between these crimes has sparked fears that Pelicot could have committed other acts in the interim that have not yet come to light.
His ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot has been hailed as a hero for her courage and dignity in the over-three-month trial that ended in December with all 51 defendants, including her ex-husband and the men he enlisted to rape her, being convicted.
During his trial, Pelicot confessed to the 1999 attempted rape. "It was indeed me," he said. "I took off her T-shirt, her shoes and her trousers but I didn't do anything." Asked why he fled, he said: "I had a mental block, thinking it could have been my daughter," he said.
However, he denied having played a role in the murder and rape of Sophie Narme, a real estate agent killed in Paris in 1991. "I have nothing to do with that case," he said, despite the similarities between the two cases, with both of the victims being young real estate agents, aged 23, who met with a man – who used a false name – for an apartment viewing.
The two women were undressed in the same way, from the bottom up. A strong smell of ether – an anesthetic historically used in surgery – was also noted at the crime scene around Narme, and the substance had been used to attack the young woman in 1999.