Dominique Pelicot faces further rape and murder investigation

Dominique Pelicot is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for drugging his former spouse, Gisèle Pelicot, and orchestrating assaults against her. He is now under further scrutiny for the possible rape and murder of a real estate agent in Paris in 1991, as well as an attempted rape incident in 1999. Authorities are examining the possibility that he may have been a serial predator for many years.

Authorities in Nanterre, near Paris, have revisited two unsolved cases and officially placed Pelicot under investigation. Law enforcement is exploring possible connections to other incidents related to young real estate agents. Pelicot may be tried again in the future.

On Thursday, he was convicted of grinding sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs into Gisèle Pelicot's meals. Over a span of nine years, from 2011 to 2020, he lured numerous men to sexually assault her while she was unconscious in their retirement village in Mazan, Provence. Authorities discovered videos of the assaults involving Gisèle, organized on his computer in a folder named "abuse." During the court proceedings, Pelicot, aged 72, acknowledged his crimes, confessing to the judges, “I am a rapist.”

On Thursday, a total of 50 men were convicted along with him, but around 20 others featured in videos could not be identified and may still be on the run.

Authorities discovered Pelicot's sexual assaults against his wife while looking into his computer equipment following his arrest in 2020. He had been caught secretly recording women’s skirts in a supermarket located in the southern French town of Carpentras.

However, his initial run-in with the police occurred ten years prior, in 2010, when he was discovered recording under women's skirts using a tiny camera concealed in a pen at a different supermarket in the Seine-et-Marne region, east of Paris, where he and Gisèle were residing at the time. He was taken into custody and chose to pay a €100 fine to steer clear of a courtroom appearance. Gisèle was kept in the dark about the incident.

Following his arrest in 2010, authorities obtained a DNA sample from Dominique Pelicot. When this sample was uploaded to a national database, it corresponded with a blood sample discovered on a shoe linked to an attempted rape incident involving a young estate agent near Paris in 1999.

At the time, Pelicot was 46 years old and had a background in real estate, having worked as an estate agent himself. The assailant entered an estate agency in the Seine-et-Marne region and claimed he needed to urgently check out a rental apartment on the top floor, using a fictitious name and address. The estate agent assigned to guide him was 19 and had only recently begun his job there.

Upon entering the apartment, the estate agent was forcefully thrown to the floor, her hands bound behind her with rope, and her mouth and nose covered by a cloth saturated with ether, a substance that can induce anesthesia. "The smell was overwhelming... it made me feel dizzy," she later recounted to the authorities. "I felt trapped in my own body and unable to move." The assailant stripped away some of her clothing and arranged her shoes carefully beside her. At one point, she felt a knife pressed against her neck. Eventually, she regained consciousness and fought back, managing to secure herself inside a cupboard, prompting the attacker to leave.

The DNA evidence from 2010 that matched Pelicot was not included in the case file back then, and the reasons for this are unknown. However, the case was reopened by an investigating magistrate in Nanterre following Pelicot's arrest in 2020 for raping his wife. When police interviewed him in 2022, Pelicot initially refused to admit any connection to the case, but he changed his story once they showed him the DNA evidence linking his blood to the shoe.

He later confessed to attempting rape during questioning by the police but claimed he did not use a knife as a weapon. He is anticipated to go to trial at a future date.

He informed the authorities that he experienced an overwhelming impulse the instant he laid eyes on the woman. However, once he removed her pants, he realized she was the same age as his daughter, which made him feel "paralyzed." Gisèle Pelicot was unaware of the incident from 1999. “When I learned that he had tried to assault a young woman who was the same age as his daughter, it felt like a shock,” she stated during the court proceedings in Avignon.

Authorities recognized that the 1999 attempted rape had similarities to a 1991 case involving the rape and murder of a 23-year-old real estate agent who had recently begun her career. In both instances, a man provided a fake name and address to view an apartment on the top floor in Paris. The victim, who had been strangled and stabbed, was discovered lying on her stomach with her hands bound behind her. Her shoes were meticulously set beside her, and there was a scent of ether in the air, along with traces of the substance found in her blood.

Pelicot has dismissed any connection to the allegations against him. He is currently under official inquiry for both offenses, and the investigation is still ongoing.

Florence Rault, an attorney representing the families of the two women, stated that the police will carry on with their investigations. She commented, "The inquiries are still in progress, so we need to wait and see what they uncover. More interviews are expected to take place in relation to the cases."

She remarked, “It's obvious that the families are hoping for a time when they can finally get a clear answer and see someone brought to justice in court.”

Antoine Camus, who represents Gisèle Pelicot and several of her relatives, expressed during the trial in Avignon that there are still unanswered questions regarding the full scope of Pelicot's actions. "My clients find it hard to accept that between 1999—just to highlight one year—and 2011, Dominique Pelicot was engaged in innocent activities like playing board games. Regrettably, my clients consider all possibilities and are overwhelmed by fear of uncovering additional revelations, particularly over such an extended period."

Camus noted that the investigation into Gisèle Pelicot revealed that Dominique Pelicot only acknowledged his offenses when faced with undeniable proof, and frequently did so in a limited way. He pointed out that during his initial police questioning, Pelicot downplayed the possible number of men who may have been involved in the assaults on Gisèle.