A woman dies of mercury poisoning in France, her ex arrested

A 50-year-old man was arrested Tuesday in Paris, suspected of having murdered his ex-companion Catherine D. poisoned Thursday, January 19, learned Wednesday AFP from judicial sources and close to the file.

The interrogation was still in progress Wednesday evening in the premises of the Parisian PJ criminal brigade, indicates the judicial source, confirming information from the Parisian.

According to the daily, the motive for this possible femicide would be the man’s refusal to break up the couple.

Catherine D., a 46-year-old entrepreneur living in the north of the capital, reportedly began to complain of severe headaches and overwhelming fatigue in the fall, before being hospitalized in mid-October, according to the newspaper.

While the doctors saw his condition deteriorate, the Pitié-Salpétrière hospital would have received many messages from his ex-companion suggesting that they study the trail of mercury poisoning.

This poisoning would have finally been corroborated by a toxicological analysis, which dated it several months earlier.

The report of the doctors to justice triggered the opening by the Paris prosecutor’s office of a judicial investigation on January 18 for “premeditated poisoning”. A crime is punishable by life.

Still according to the Parisian, the search of the suspect’s home, in which his ex-partner and their two young children lived before their separation, would have made it possible to update empty bottles of a toxic product based on mercury.

In 2021, 122 women were killed in France under the blows of their spouse or ex-spouse, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.

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