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["The Time of Love" by Françoise Hardy playing]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY
♪ It's the time of love The time of friends ♪
♪ And adventures When time comes and goes ♪
♪ Your mind simply flows Despite your sorrows ♪
♪ For the time of love Is both long and short ♪
♪ It never ends When we remember ♪
♪ You think when you're twenty The world is your oyster ♪
♪ Forever and ever ♪
♪ The fairest of skies Will fill up your eyes ♪
♪ For the time of love Is both long and short ♪
♪ It never ends ♪
♪ We remember when ♪
[siren blaring]
♪ We remember when ♪
[music slows]
♪ We remember when ♪
[music distorts]
♪ We remember when ♪
[eerie music playing]
BLOOD
BATHROOM
BLOOD
ACT 1 THE MANHUNT
So on the night of July 8, 95, I slept very, very badly
and I woke up at around 5:30 a.m. feeling very anxious,
like, with a knot in my stomach.
I don't know how to express it physically,
but it was very, very powerful, very violent.
I kept looking at my clock while I waited,
and I waited until 8:30 a.m. then I called Hélène.
And then something completely unexpected happened.
A man's voice answered and that wasn't normal.
I thought I must have made a mistake. I hung up.
I tried again and it was still a man's voice.
I said to myself, "What is this?" And, well, he was a fireman.
So then I said, at least I think I said,
"Put my daughter on. What's going on? Put my daughter on."
Then the man said, and I can still hear his voice,
"No, madam, I can't put her on."
I said, "Is she gone?"
"Yes, she's gone."
[somber music playing]
On our way to Paris, we stopped at all the stops.
All the motorway rest stops to call again, but there was no answer.
We traveled all that way without knowing, without any information.
All we knew was that this man said, "Yes, madam, she's gone." Period.
We followed the police car and we arrived at the courtyard of police headquarters.
I kept asking myself, "What happened?" You know?
[music intensifies]
1ST FLOOR LANDING FACING THE VICTIM'S FRONT DOOR
It was like a knife plunged into my stomach, into my gut.
It was right here, right here.
THE KNIFE
BLOOD - TABLE - KNIFE
ENTRANCE - BEDROOM
PILLOW - EXHIBIT N°1 - BED
27 YEARS OLD PSYCHOLOGY STUDENT
JULY 8, 1995
I DON'T WANT TO LIE TO YOU,
I DIDN'T SLEEP EITHER THE NIGHT OF JULY 7-8.
PARIS CRIMINAL POLICE HEADQUARTERS
NATIONAL POLICE THE POLICE, A MAN'S JOB
THE POLICE A MAN'S JOB
[somber music playing]
[Martine Monteil] I'm the granddaughter and daughter of police officers.
And I have to say that I was and still am very drawn to active lines of work.
OFFICER IN SKIRT CATCHES THE STRANGLER
You see, I didn't dress like a man.
"WOMAN-COP"
It was the first time that a woman was appointed to the Serious Crimes Unit.
Which is an elite unit, you know?
It's the best criminal investigation unit in France.
THE LADY AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS
I arrived on February 2nd, 1996.
SERIOUS CRIMES UNIT
The unit immediately told me about these murders of young women.
They just dumped a shitload of files on my desk
and that was basically it.
Right off the bat, two cases stood out.
Agnès Nijkamp.
[sinister music playing]
[gate squeaks]
BEDROOM BODY OF AGNÈS NIJKAMP
32 YEARS OLD INTERIOR DESIGNER
[Martine] And the Hélène Frinking case.
Her murder had similar circumstances to those of the Nijkamp case.
That is, Hélène had more or less the same kind of wounds on her body
as Agnes did.
We had to catch the scumbag who did this.
We couldn't allow someone like that to run free.
I'll be honest, we wanted to avenge them.
It's motivation, you know?
And that goes for everyone, not just me.
We make it personal.
That is, either we win or he wins here.
And we have to win. We have to catch this guy.
VICTIM: HÉLÈNE FRINKING BORN 12/02/67 IN HOLLAND
[Anne] Hélène was the fourth of six children.
The sun was always a big inspiration for me, you know?
So that's why I chose Hélène,
which comes from Helios, which means the sun.
She was almost 27 years old in '95.
She wanted to go to Paris to study psychology.
TWO WHITE MARKS
In the case of Hélène Frinking,
we were lucky to find DNA, just like with Agnès Nijkamp,
where we found sperm on her body.
SERIOUS CRIMES UNIT
And then someone puts a witness statement on my desk.
Elisabeth, a victim who managed to escape her attacker.
BUTCHER’S KNIFE NECK
[sinister music continues]
[gate squeaks]
[Martine] He gags her, he ties her up,
and when he goes to turn off the light upstairs in the small duplex,
she escapes through the bedroom on the ground floor.
She manages to untie herself and gets away.
So we have an extremely important witness in the investigation.
23 YEARS OLD OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST
We also found some DNA from a cigarette he smoked.
We found a Winston cigarette butt,
which linked all three cases because of the DNA match.
AGNÈS NIJKAMP DNA 15-16 7-9.8 21-31 4-5 1-8
HÉLÈNE FRINKING DNA 15-16 7-9.8 21-31 4-5 1-8
ELISABETH DNA 15-16 7-9.8 21-31 4-5 1-8
MALE DNA 15-16 7-9.8 21-31 4-5 1-8
[Martine] We called the DNA "SK", for Serial Killer,
since we had three crime scenes that were linked.
Unfortunately, although they'd had a database in the UK for a long time
we didn't have one in France.
If we'd had a database,
maybe we could have identified him and arrested him.
But sadly, we didn't have one.
UNKNOWN MALE DNA
[birds chirping]
Later I found out that there was a survivor.
Young Elisabeth, who had, before Hélène, before Hélène's murder,
she had managed to escape the same assailant,
since the DNA found in both crime scenes matched.
It was absolutely wonderful to have found her.
Her statement helped a lot,
since she was able to provide a facial composite.
[printer whirring]
And she described an Arabic man.
[Martine] So Elizabeth was really confident of this facial composite.
This is how she saw him. She felt certain.
He had a shaved head. So he could have been in the military.
We checked prisons, the foreign legion, firefighters, the police.
He was athletic.
You know, that type of guy a little muscular, etc.
We also realized
that the women were attacked in the evening or late at night.
So we figured he might work night shifts,
and we went and checked all the night taxis.
Anyway, anything that might relate to our findings
and this young woman's statement.
And Elizabeth was incredibly brave,
because she went around Paris with the unit, you know,
throughout the 11th arrondissement, etc.
to see if we could find this guy.
[inquisitive music playing]
FOOTPRINT IN BLOOD
I learned early on that he left a bloody footprint near the bed.
We discovered that the culprit's second toe is longer than the big toe.
This is quite common.
There are many people who have this distinguishing feature,
which is called an Egyptian foot.
All the suspects who came in for questioning,
we made them take off their shoes.
We wanted to check if they had an Egyptian foot.
We were really looking for very tiny details.
Since we didn't have, I admit, a lot to go on in these cases.
[suspenseful music playing]
And I would see him everywhere, this man.
I saw him as a driver, a bus driver.
I saw him… I pretty much saw him everywhere.
That's my daughter's apartment. Just above the door.
[somber music playing]
Here it is.
So my daughter was here and the young man was there.
The concierge could see him here.
I had to find him.
I mean, I really had to find him, I just had to find him.
So I went to Hélène's street
and asked all the shopkeepers and other people around
"Did you hear anything on that night?"
People hadn't heard anything.
Hélène's street, Hélène's neighborhood hadn't been visited by the police.
It was a shock, you know?
She was very, very involved. She was suffering.
She wanted to be an investigator alongside the investigators.
And it was difficult to brush her off.
That's not-- It's not something I could do.
All of this, this is all related to the case, see.
I was a pain in the neck, but I don't regret it.
I wanted to be in a joint investigation. A joint investigation is a good thing.
"Did you do that? What about that and that?"
"Did you do that? And that? Have you…"
Well, obviously, that wears them out a little.
And so, yeah… Yeah, I was on their backs.
From the beginning, I was on their backs.
The thing is she needed to understand
that we weren't just twiddling our thumbs, you know?
We slept with those case files, we lived with those case files,
we ate with those case files, they were constantly on our minds.
It was a massive undertaking.
But we couldn't find him. Yeah, that's the truth.
[somber music playing]
A woman, a mother, she crumbles, she suffers,
then she gets back up and she fights.
That's how it is. It's that simple.
WITNESS STATEMENT ELISABETH O.
"JUST CALL ME FLO"
She found out from Elisabeth, probably,
that he mentioned the name Flo or Florian at some point.
Flo was the name of trucks…
-[interviewer] Yes. -…a trucking company.
ON THE BACK OF MANY TRUCKS?
So, I don't even know how many trucks I passed
just to check the driver's face.
Or I would stop at motorway rest areas to check a driver's face.
Later, I found out that Flo was also the name of a restaurant chain.
So I thought, well it could be someone who worked in a Flo restaurant.
This was a well-known restaurant in Paris,
and there was one on Boulevard Sébastopol
where she'd walked that night on her way home.
They must've been there, absolutely.
And then I asked them if they checked the lists of employees
from that restaurant.
[laughs] I put them under a little pressure.
So Anne was the one
who suggested to the judge that maybe we should dig deeper into that lead.
I don't even know how many employees from that restaurant chain
we ended up interviewing.
But nothing came of it. Nothing at all came of it.
AUGUST 31, 1997
[indistinct chattering]
[reporter] Last night, the Princess of Wales was killed
in a car accident in Paris under the Alma Bridge.
She was with her friend Dodi Al-Fayed who was also killed.
The Serious Crimes Unit of the judicial police,
headed by a woman, Martine Monteil,
is in charge of the investigation and was on site as soon as the tragedy occurred.
I have to admit, it was very hard, a big weight,
because the Serious Crimes Unit had a heavy work load
and we really could have done without a traffic accident.
Except that the accident of the Princess of Wales
couldn't be ignored.
Impossible. The pressure from her being the highest level of royalty…
Let me put it this way,
we had to move heaven and earth, you know? And that's what we did.
[somber music playing]
I told the guys, there's no point.
Either way, we have to take it. There's no point arguing.
So in the heat of the moment, I put together a team,
but then, very slowly, they went back to their cases
because, well, the car accident
also involved the death of a woman and a man,
but, I mean, the circumstances weren't exactly as troubling.
Whereas this case involved several dead girls and a guy who was on the run.
We hadn't found he who was yet. So…
[sinister music playing]
HALLWAY FRONT DOOR
On September 23rd, 1997, we got a call from a young man
who had found his fiancée dead at her home in the 19th arrondissement.
So we went there. We went immediately.
BLOOD MARKS DINING ROOM
CURTAIN - BLOOD BEDROOM
FILE CABINET TELEPHONE
When I walked in, I froze. I froze.
I said to myself, "No way, it's… he's done it again."
19 YEARS OLD STUDENT
They came to tell me
that the parents of Magali Sirotti were outside the building.
That was absolutely terrible.
[Chantal] When you wake up at night and you see her face in the coffin…
all you can say is, "She must have suffered so much."
-There's nothing else to say. -[interviewer] Yes.
-"She must have suffered so much." -[interviewer] Yes.
[Anne] Magali was a terrible blow.
I knew right away it was him.
It was really obvious to me. Obvious. Obvious.
It couldn't be avoided when it happened to my daughter,
but just to think it could happen to other girls… No, no, no.
[somber music playing]
My close friends said, "Hold on, you're not a police officer,
you're not a lawyer, you're not this, you're not that."
"You're a mother so, well listen, go and see the mother."
"Yes, that's it. I'll go and see the mother."
So I went and it was an absolutely extraordinary meeting.
The young girl who had been murdered, Magali,
was engaged and she was going to get married.
When we arrived at Magali Sirotti's crime scene,
it was a real slap in the face, a double slap in the face.
If she was dead, it was because we hadn't arrested him yet.
God damn it, we're going all out in this investigation,
what are we missing here, hmm?
Because we were working like crazy.
We were missing something, we had to find out what it was.
Why this girl had died?
So that meant he was at it again.
We had to move, we had to be extra vigilant,
because if he was on the loose,
that meant he could do it again soon. Period.
[inquisitive music playing]
[Tourancheau] I'm a journalist. I deal with cops, the police, criminals, crooks.
At the time, there weren't any women journalists who dealt with the police.
I was the first.
The cops in the 36th district saw me as this little journalist girl,
nosy, a bit of a snoop.
Plus, I have a certain look.
I always wear miniskirts, leather jackets, heels and all that.
And so, at first the cops in the 36th district couldn't figure me out.
At first, I acted naive.
But it wasn't long until they figured out that I'm not actually that naive.
So, at the end of September 1997,
I met a police officer from the Serious Crimes Unit.
The policeman said, "We just got a case."
"On September 23rd, a young woman named Magali Sirotti."
"He tied her up and raped her. It's just awful."
"Oh, and this crime may be linked to other crimes against young women."
So, I say, "Oh yeah? How can you be sure it's the same guy?"
He said, "Well, we're not sure about Magali."
"It's the same MO, but we don't have the DNA results back yet."
"But we do have the DNA
for two other women who had their throats cut
and also for a survivor, so we're sure it's the same guy."
UNKNOWN MALE DNA (SK)
(SK) BLOOD TYPE B
BLEND OF MALE DNA AND VICTIM'S DNA
UNKNOWN MALE DNA
And I said to him, "No, I have to write about it."
"I really want to write about it."
And he said to me, "Just don't do that right now."
"You could ruin our investigation."
"This guy is extremely dangerous."
"If you look at the crime scenes,
I hope you never see anything like that."
"So, please, this guy is on the loose, I beg you not to write about it just yet."
And I agreed to this because, although I'm a journalist,
above all I'm a citizen,
and I don't want a rapist and murderer to evade arrest
and then be roaming the streets because of something that I wrote.
[sinister music playing]
[Martine] That's it. That's it, he's back on the prowl. He strikes again.
So we need move quickly.
This is a race against time. A race against time.
FORENSIC POLICE LABORATORY
[Patricia] At that time, the forensic department was archaic.
Seriously archaic.
Crime scene analysis, which is in charge of taking samples from crime scenes,
was an assortment of drunks and losers who'd been put out to pasture.
It was supposed to be a cutting edge unit, but it wasn't.
MOLECULAR GENETICS LABORATORY
So, to make up for these shortcomings,
the Serious Crimes Unit relied on Doctor Pascal,
who is a pioneer in all things related to DNA in France.
PASCAL O. HOSPITAL PRACTITIONER
[gentle music playing]
The entire Serious Crimes Unit, Martine Monteil,
completely relied on Doctor Pascal.
He carried out forensic analysis on a case-by-case basis.
That is, crime scene analysis samples, traces of sperm, blood and hair.
Dr. Pascal compared them to the unknown DNA that he had named "SK",
DNA MALE (SK)
because it's the first time in France that we had DNA for a serial killer.
Like everyone in the department,
he campaigned for the creation of a DNA database.
There was a lot of push-back in France,
because this kind of database scares people.
-[woman] That's for sure. -[man] No!
The DNA database, I would like to say,
it is a dangerous precedent to establish a DNA database of the population.
-[woman] It's already done. -It's your history…
-I agree with you. -[man] …your personality.
I don't want this database.
[sinister music playing]
OUTSIDE 12 RUE DE LA FORGE ROYALE PARIS 11TH ARRONDISSEMENT
VERBAL STATEMENT
On November 16th, 1997,
another victim is found at rue de la Forge Royale.
25 YEARS OLD SECRETARY
Look how beautiful this young woman was.
Same as the others. They were all pretty.
My God, it really is a life cut short.
And in such a way.
It's terrible.
Her name is Estelle Magd
and this time around it's her own parents, who had a copy of the key,
and when she didn't answer, they went to her home
and found their daughter, naked, bloody,
and with the same neck and stab wounds as the other victims.
[sinister music continues]
And we found the same pattern, the clothes cut in the same way.
So, it was kind of like a signature.
At least to me it was. Very clearly.
DISCOVERY OF A BAG CONTAINING A GRAY T-SHIRT
We found a sweatshirt, a large T-shirt, which was also blood-stained.
So we'd definitely find DNA as well, because there was DNA on the T-shirt,
there was blood, there was sweat.
Anyway, we would easily be able to link it to the other cases,
since the other cases had DNA.
I wasn't allowed to say anything.
And I fully understand that the police have an absolute duty to maintain secrecy.
I totally respected that, 100%,
but from then on, after two other girls were killed
in the same way as my own daughter,
that's when I thought to myself, and I said,
"The media."
I can say that since the end of July '95,
the authorities have known that they're dealing with a serial killer,
an extremely dangerous man,
and that, logically, since it is a serial killer we're dealing with,
we could expect him to strike again.
[reporter] There's a serial killer in Paris.
-…a serial killer. -…serial killer…
A serial killer in east Paris.
[reporter 2] This is a facial composite, from a description by another young woman
after she escaped a similar attack.
[reporter 3] This time, Anne Gautier goes to see the judge
with her husband and daughter.
They want to know if the police will finally get their hands
on the serial killer who murdered Hélène.
Will we catch him now?
I hope so. We live in that hope.
You can't fully grieve until justice is done.
Anne Gautier is really angry.
And she says, "These last two deaths,
Magali Sirotti and Estelle Magd, shouldn't have happened."
"It's a public threat
and I'm now going to speak up to warn young women in Paris to protect themselves
so they don't fall victim to this predator."
A serial killer doesn't stop.
He won't stop until he's arrested, he can't help himself.
FEAR IN THE CITY
[reporter 3] People are talking. They're scared.
Everyone's buying the newspaper so they can see the composite
and see what he looks like.
They want to do something to move things forward,
so that the police find him.
That's when Paris went into a state of panic.
The revelation of the existence of a killer in eastern Paris
and the involvement of Anne Gautier, who talks to the press about it,
all adds up to a state of fear among young women in Paris.
Yes, they're scared.
[woman] So yes, I'm always nervous.
Every time I go into my building, I make sure to close the door behind me.
Suddenly I start seeing on the electronic billboards,
"Young women, be careful, don't go home alone at night."
"Get someone to drive you or take a taxi."
A crime cop told me, "Patricia, be careful."
"If a door takes 15 seconds to close,
that's more than enough time for someone to slip in behind you."
FEAR IN BASTILLE THE RAPIST MURDERER
I have to admit that I wasn't happy that things got out then.
It's hysteria. Too much hysteria, that's it.
That's what it led to.
France isn't a country that often has serial killers.
Let's be honest, this isn't the United States.
So, obviously, it snowballs.
People ate it up and it took off.
[reporter] The police have a facial composite
of a 30 year-old dark-skinned man.
Many details link the past and current cases.
But the police are being cautious.
Up until now, violent sex attacks followed by murder
were a rare kind of criminal event in the city of Paris.
At that time, even the term "serial killer" was taboo in the unit.
Doctor Pascal coined the term "DNA SK",
but the homicide cops didn't use it.
That, plus that, plus that, plus that equals serial killer.
"Well, this is France, you know?"
"We are smart people, so he's not a serial killer."
"There's no such thing. We don't have those here."
It's because it reminds them too much of American serial killers
who aren't at all the same, each of whom claims many more victims.
[sinister music playing]
I don't think they fully grasped,
either in terms of psychology or the investigation,
what a serial killer is.
So, not only do we not have a DNA database,
we also have no idea about the psychology of a serial killer.
In addition to that,
we don't have the tools to cross-check serial killings in France.
Files are scattered across every city, every court.
So it wasn't working. It was actually a total mess.
OCTOBER - NOVEMBER - DECEMBER
[Patricia] In January '98, the crime unit released info
about some sort of gray sweatshirt, XXL-sized.
This sweatshirt is shown to the press, they broadcast it everywhere.
As in, "If anyone knows a guy who wears a sweatshirt like this one,
give us a call."
When you're down to showing a piece of clothing that could belong to anyone,
it makes me think, "They're struggling, they're really struggling."
Of course I was under a lot of pressure, you know? That's expected.
I'm the head of the Serious Crimes Unit, so I'm held accountable.
And because I was under a lot of pressure, I kept on saying,
"I would like us to push forward with the creation of a DNA database."
DNA MASCULINE (SK)
OFFICE OF JUDGE THIEL FIRST EXAMINING MAGISTRATE
[Martine] Judge Thiel and I often saw each other.
And he said to me, "We have to take all the lab results."
"We just have to take everything we can and run matches, you know?"
"Force them to run matches with SK's DNA."
The authorities were infuriated, and they kept saying,
"We're not allowed to run matches. We don't have a database, etc."
It was terrible. So I got really, really angry.
I said, "So you'd rather have dead girls on your conscience,
instead of figuring out an efficient, quick way to run matches straight away?"
"Because if we figure that out, we might be able to get the guy's name."
Yes, we circumvented the law, and we didn't care.
We took full responsibility.
The end justifies the means.
We weren't infringing on French people's identity, or anything like that,
so that we could do unethical things.
We were looking for a serial killer who was killing young women,
and unfortunately there were already too many of these cases.
At the end of the day, I'm sorry,
but we had to do everything we could to stop him.
[tense music playing]
[Olivier Pascal] So we got the file, opened it,
read the numbers of the genetic code that interested us,
and compared them to the unknown DNA.
If the numbers are different, we close the file, put it back
and then pull out a second file and start again.
[interviewer] Is there no way to cross-reference these files?
[Dr. Pascal] Well no, unfortunately, there is no DNA database,
all of our files are kept in separate folders.
We literally have to take them out one by one in order to find a DNA match.
JANUARY 1998 FEBRUARY 1998
MARCH 1998
It's March 24th, 1998, when Doctor Pascal calls me.
I'm shaking. I think, "My God, he's calling me."
Well, it's not that we weren't in touch, we would see one another,
we would run into one another in corridors, and all that.
But he was calling me and he was trembling,
and then he says, "I have good news and bad news."
I say, "Okay, tell me the good news."
He says, "We've identified him."
IDENTIFICATION OF UNKNOWN MALE DNA
DNA OF GUY GEORGES
FROM THE CIGARETTE BUTT
VAGINAL SWABS
MALE DNA: GUY GEORGES
[sighs] It felt like a relief, like a deliverance…
[exhales] It was indescribable. It was a deliverance.
DNA OF GUY GEORGES
DOCTOR O. PASCAL HOSPITAL OF NANTES
"And he says, the less good, or the bad news,
well, is that we brought the killer in, in '95."
There you have it, that's a bit of a shock, really.
At the time, he was mostly interviewed by units
looking at cases of girls murdered in parking lots.
[sinister music playing]
If you dig a little, you can find some similarities,
but it's not that obvious.
Why parking lots? The other cases took place in apartments.
But we still have the same wounds and the slashed clothing. They're there.
27 YEARS OLD MARKETING ASSISTANT
We didn't find any sperm. But he might have used a condom. Anyway…
[sinister music continues]
22 YEARS OLD PRESS OFFICER
We're totally convinced it's him, all the investigators are.
You know, completely convinced.
Then there's also a much older case, from 1991,
Pascale Escarfail.
CLOTHES - WOUNDS - BLOOD
BODY OF PASCALE ESCARFAIL
19 YEARS OLD STUDENT
I said, "Okay, listen. We'll look into this later. We'll debrief later."
"For now, the important thing is to track this animal down."
[printer whirring]
I distributed his photo across France.
We had to act quickly.
The thinking was that the predator was in the city,
the animal was in the city,
and me, my obsession, was to arrest him within the next few hours.
I requested reinforcements. I assembled a bunch of people,
we created a list of locations and places
where we were likely to find this Guy Georges.
[suspenseful music playing]
There was another pressing goal.
Once everything was underway, I said to the heads of units involved,
"Come with me, we need to call the families of the victims."
Chief Monteil called me,
"Mrs. Gautier, we know who he is."
"But you can't tell anyone, not your children, or no one."
"I understand."
So that's it, they're there, looking for him.
Hopefully, he won't ever kill anyone else again.
[siren wailing]
[Martine] The case had received so much publicity.
There was so much pressure, the press sensed something, of course.
An energy, a hustle and bustle.
The judicial police and the headquarters were buzzing.
Well, they sensed that something was going on.
The chief told me, "The press knows about it."
And so I said, "Please, please, keep a grip on them."
"Please, don't let there be any leaks."
[reporter] Good morning, the serial killer from eastern Paris now has a face.
A real manhunt is on. More soon.
"The serial killer in eastern Paris has been identified."
"The Serious Crimes Unit has a name. His name is Guy Georges."
That's just appalling.
A police reporter like me leaked the killer's name before he was arrested.
That's not something you should do.
You can't do something like that.
Let's imagine that Guy Georges heard the announcement.
He might see it on television, on the radio, whatever, and then run,
in which case, the hunt would become even more complicated.
But we thought, "Come on, let's get on with it."
I should also mention that the police unit is a war machine.
Evading us is no mean feat.
I had high hopes that we would find him.
[suspenseful music playing]
And we did find him.
THE SAME DAY 12:44 PM
Two officials were on a stakeout early one morning at the Blanche metro station.
I don't remember what they were working on,
but they were on a stakeout for a different case.
And then, they saw a man come out of the metro
and one of them said, "Look, look. Doesn't he look like the photo?"
They took out the photo, "Oh boy, it's him. Let's go."
And presto, they forgot all about their case.
They jumped on it. They arrested him.
GROCERY STORE WHERE GUY GEORGES WAS ARRESTED
ABDEL, SECURITY GUARD WHO WITNESSED THE ARREST
SHOWS WHERE GUY GEORGES WAS HANDCUFFED
[Abdel] He came in this morning. He went in.
The police were following him. They asked him his first name.
Then they jumped on him.
They brought him here. They put him on all fours.
And then, they arrested him.
[hopeful music playing]
[door slams]
[reporter] The DNA tests are conclusive.
They link him to the three murders and one attempted homicide.
And yet, Guy Georges looks nothing like the facial composite
distributed by the police for several months.
There have been enough deaths,
enough suffering, so this is good.
Now he'll be convicted, and,
we, the families,
will really be able to begin to grieve.
[somber music playing]
I thought to myself, "He did all these evil things."
My God. It's… You have to take a deep breath.
I thought, "He's the monster that killed these girls."
I kept seeing the pictures of the girls.
All the pictures.
So for me, a monster climbed the steps of the 36th district.
He really was a monster.
It was all I could think.
[sinister music playing]
[reporter] This is the new face of Guy Georges,
who, since yesterday, is being questioned
in relation to the murders of three young women in eastern Paris.
This afternoon, he confessed to two more.
Police suspect his involvement in two further murders.
We did our job. He was arrested and couldn't hurt anyone anymore.
We felt confident about the cases for which we had DNA evidence,
because that man left traces behind him after all.
All that was left now was to get a confession
for the cases where there was no DNA.
We had caught the guy.
I wondered what kind of lawyer, however talented, could debunk this case.
So when the trial began, we felt confident.
Absolutely confident.
ACT 2 PROSECUTION
I REALIZE I'M SPEAKING TO YOU OPENLY,
AS THOUGH YOU WERE MY FRIEND.
MARCH 19, 2001
[Frédérique Pons] A serious sex offender is innocent until proven guilty.
The one thing that can hold me back is personality.
I either want to defend someone, or I don't.
It's all about chemistry, it's not something you can put a finger on.
[upbeat music playing]
I think we've all experienced it at social events.
We meet people we've never met before and who make our blood run cold
and make a bad impression on us,
and we tell ourselves that there's no way
we would want to be alone in a room with this person.
But that wasn't at all the case.
[police siren wailing]
When you meet Guy Georges,
you don't at all get the sense that he's manipulative.
You get the impression of someone who is an open book.
Someone without ulterior motives,
who isn't calculating, and who isn't violent.
DAY 1 OF THE TRIAL
[court staff speaking French]
-Your sweater, sir. -What? Yes?
Could you take off your sweater. And look at me.
-Look at me. -Sorry.
Yes, yes. I'll look at you, but it's… It's hard.
-Can I sit down? -Huh?
-I'm going to sit down, okay? -Yes, go ahead.
[court staff continue in French]
[inaudible]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Frédérique] Alex Ursulet was Guy Georges' lawyer,
and he trusted him completely.
A few weeks before the trial, Alex Ursulet, who is my ex-husband,
asked me to join him on the case.
There's no doubt that having a woman at his side
was part of Alex Ursulet's defense strategy
or, I should say, the strategy for most male lawyers in rape cases, really.
It's really common.
He presented the case saying, "This man is wrongly accused. Definitely."
Evidence was found at each crime scene,
some of this evidence wasn't a match for Guy Georges
and Guy Georges was cleared.
For instance, his fingerprints were never found.
An Egyptian footprint was found at one crime scene,
and he doesn't have an Egyptian foot.
A facial composite circulated for months,
but it wasn't even remotely close to Guy Georges' facial features.
POLICE SKETCH
In principle, what I think is irrelevant.
It doesn't change anything, it's of absolutely no consequence.
What matters to me is what's in the file.
But whether or not I believe he's innocent,
my personal conviction…
that just doesn't matter.
[suspenseful music playing]
[uneasy music playing]
[Solange Doumic] To me, Guy Georges isn't a monster, he's a man.
And that's the problem.
That's to say, somewhere inside Guy Georges
we'll find the same humanity that I have in me,
that's in you, in all of us.
And that's what's so terrifying.
If he were a monster, that would make things so much easier.
The issue is that we're cast from the same mold.
[uneasy music continues]
That's what makes it so painful, actually.
And that's where the mystery lies.
That's what makes it so difficult.
The fact that he isn't a monster, but a man.
I was 30 years old
and this was the second big trial I'd worked on as a lawyer.
But this time I wasn't the defense lawyer. I was the victim's lawyer.
[suspenseful music continues]
He has to stop hurting people.
That's one thing that's clear, justice must be served. That's it.
We know it's him because there is evidence in the case that points to him.
It's not a flight of fancy, it's not a suspicion,
we know it's him.
But we also know that jurors are easily influenced.
So if at the hearing he suddenly said,
"Yes, I admit guilt for the cases in which my DNA was found,
it really was me, but not for the others."
I was worried the jurors would think,
"Well, we're going to find him guilty for all the crimes in which DNA was found
and where there's no DNA, we'll acquit him."
That would have been unbearable because it would have been a lie.
So, there was this tension.
It was really hard.
I sat here, in the first row,
because I wanted to have my eyes on Guy Georges.
I wanted to see his reactions, I wanted to write it all down.
Everything that happened, everything, everything.
Names, behaviors…
So, yes, it was important to try not to miss anything.
I know there will be a war between the two sides.
Alex Ursulet swore to me in his office
just before the trial that Guy Georges is innocent.
That it was a judicial error.
He said to me, "Patricia, I will prove it."
"I will show it at the trial."
"I swear to God that Guy Georges is innocent."
[suspenseful music continues]
[Anne] I think… Really, I never… ever wanted to attend the trial, no.
It wasn't my thing.
Everything that happened that led him to getting arrested…
Now, it's good, he'll be judged,
but it's not for me. No, it's not for me.
DAY 2
[crowd clamoring]
[reporter] The crowd outside the courthouse gets bigger by the day.
And in the room, the tension rises.
The alleged rapist and murderer of seven young women
Guy Georges is in the dock, bringing anger upon the victim's families.
Since Monday, the only answer he has given to the judge's questions is,
"I did not kill anyone."
I realized that there is no limit to Guy George's perversion,
since he continues to hurt people with his attitude, to cause harm.
I'm thinking of the victims, the families of the victims who are here,
and who are extremely vulnerable because of their pain.
[Martine] When we realized he was pleading innocence…
Well, I have to say, it was completely absurd.
We thought, "What kind of advice has his lawyer been giving him?"
"Or maybe he actually lost his mind? I don't know what."
We couldn't understand.
On the other hand, we were surprised but calm.
Calm because he had actually confessed everything to us.
VICTIM: MAGALI SIROTTI
I WANT TO EASE MY CONSCIENCE
VICTIM: CATHERINE ROCHER
I AM THE ATTACKER
THE WHOLE TRUTH OF THIS CASE
Even for the cases where we had nothing,
for Escarfail, for Magali Sirotti,
he confessed everything.
STATEMENT OF GUY GEORGES
FRANCIS BECHET POLICE CAPTAIN
Officer Francis Bechet, alias Sidney,
was the first person to get Guy Georges to confess.
Sidney was there, on the witness stand, and he told us everything.
But he'd already told me what he'd done with Guy Georges beforehand.
And that, he didn't say this on the witness stand,
that in order to get Guy Georges to talk,
since Guy had just been arrested,
he wouldn't give any impression that he's public enemy number one.
So Sidney created an atmosphere in his office at the headquarters.
He put on jazz, he played music in the background
and he offered him a whiskey.
And so he started talking to Guy Georges, but in a real casual way.
A BRETON NAME…
A YOUNG BLOND GIRL… CAUGHT MY EYE…
Guy Georges confessed in detail, in great detail.
He told him everything.
As though to a… almost as though to a confidant.
He bought a number 12 Opinel knife.
He bought some duct tape.
Just as he was finishing his beer
a young girl walked by in the street, dressed in black.
A 19-year-old blonde. Pretty as a picture.
Guy Georges told Sidney that he immediately fell for this pretty girl.
He left immediately, he followed the young girl,
and he climbed the steps behind her,
held her up with the Opinel
and then he spent hours with her.
[sinister music playing]
Pascale is a heroine.
She kicked him.
She was 5'3". She was 19 years old.
She was tied up, naked and she kicked him.
And well… that made Guy Georges angry.
And… when the police found her, her mouth was clear,
that is, the gag was off.
It was a duct tape gag, there were a few traces of duct tape around her mouth,
and her mouth was open, like that.
And Sidney, the cop that first got him to confess,
during the seven years of investigations, he kept asking himself,
"What was she saying? What was Pascale saying when she died?"
And Guy Georges said,
"The duct tape had come off and she looked at me and she said,
'What are you doing? Are you going to kill me?'"
And Sidney was wiped out by what he heard.
These were the victim's very last words as reported by her killer.
And Sidney said to him, "And what did you do then, Guy Georges?"
"Well, actually, I went to wash my hands at the kitchen sink."
"I saw there were beers under the sink. I grabbed a couple."
"I drank one. I took the other one and then I left."
[somber music playing]
DAY 3
Do you think he's the only innocent person to confess while in police custody?
Do you think no one ever confesses in police custody
and then changes their mind?
In fact, as soon as we go into the details,
when we examine each of the cases, you'll see that they created a culprit,
they laid everything on him and then charged him for almost every case
that took place during a time he might have been able to commit them,
for the plain and simple reason that he wasn't in custody.
He repeatedly said that his arrest in the street was really violent,
that when he was taken to police headquarters,
as they brought him up the steps,
he was kicked at that time, right there and then.
Then after that, while in police custody, and let me remind you that at that time,
there was no lawyer present, that nothing was filmed,
and he said that, due to the pressure he felt,
he was made to confess to things he did not do.
He was never hit.
The only injury he had to the head, a very minor, even superficial injury,
was from when he was arrested.
There's nothing else to say.
The rest of the time it was "a game", a psychological game.
A psychological contest between the investigators and him
in order to obtain a confession.
That's it.
But you don't have to hit someone to get a confession.
He's mocking us, he's mocking the court,
he's mocking everyone and we're just watching him.
We're right in front of him, and it's unbelievable, unbelievable.
[Patricia] The families of the victims
were expecting Guy Georges to be convicted.
But they needed to hear him say,
to hear Guy Georges explain certain things,
to answer some questions they still had
about the last moments of their daughters' or sisters' lives.
I don't know, I can't even tell you… A monster, really. With no reaction.
Even when he looks at the pictures, nothing. It's crazy.
[Solange] I looked at the photo album for each of the crime scenes.
It's one of the unbearable things about trials.
Guy Georges didn't actually leaf through the photo album.
Guy Georges studied the photos one after the other,
looking at them attentively, calmly,
but with great concentration, detached.
One after another.
He looked at all of them. He analyzed them all.
It's chilling. Just chilling.
We looked at them for, I don't know, 20 seconds.
And him, on the other hand…
I timed him and I said to him, "Guy Georges,
you looked at the photo album for five minutes 40 seconds. I timed you."
Unless you ask a very specific question, he doesn't answer at all,
or he denies it completely.
"No, not at all." "How do you know that?"
Anyway. So, in this case, I say something very specific.
"You looked at the pictures for five minutes and 40 seconds."
And he said, "Well, uh… I don't know. That's just the way it is."
He doesn't respond that it surprises him or that he's trying to analyze them
or that he doesn't understand, or whatever.
He says it's not him. But he doesn't know why he's looking.
I say that I've watched him and that his answer doesn't satisfy me,
but I don't sit down again, and well… He suddenly says,
"Yes, it's painful."
And I ask, "So, how do you hide it so well?"
And then obviously he doesn't answer that.
DAY 4
CRIMINAL COURT LAWYERS' ENTRANCE
[Anne] This is about people's humanity,
men or women, it's not about feminism,
or trying to defend what others call indefensible.
No, there's nothing indefensible here. Nothing.
There's just proof.
It's terrifying, it's a terrifying case, but he's a human being.
WITHOUT REALIZING,
I CALLED YOU "MOM" TWICE
His childhood did strike me a lot, since he was a child born out of wedlock
to a young girl and a soldier who was just passing through, so to speak.
…CONSIDER YOUR CHILD "ABANDONED"…
DECLARATION OF ABANDONMENT
CHILD PUT UP FOR ADOPTION
WARD OF THE STATE
He was rejected. He was rejected. He was rejected. He was rejected.
And so Guy Georges quite soon ended up with Child Services
and he was placed with the Morin family.
This family was as loving and supportive as anyone can be when they have,
I think it was almost 20 children.
That is, the family had seven natural children
and around 13 children placed with them through Child Services.
[interviewer] So what happened when he was 16?
Well, he… he attacked a girl from behind.
He tried to strangle her, that's all.
[Patricia] Jeanne Morin arrived through the witnesses entrance.
She went in, she went to the witness stand.
She testified about Guy Georges' childhood and why she ended up rejecting him
when Guy Georges assaulted his two foster sisters.
The first one when he was 14,
and the second, Christiane,
with an iron bar which he held tightly up against her throat.
Guy Georges was around 15 and a half, 16 years old.
And so, Ms. Morin said, "That was what triggered it."
"And so I called the social worker,
I called Child Services and I sent Guy Georges away."
[somber music playing]
He was sent to a children's home. He became a runaway, a delinquent.
And from then on, it just went downhill.
The crazy thing is that
we see this Guy Georges who is touched,
who is moved by this old woman and who at one point says to her,
"Mom, I want tell you, I love you."
And Mrs. Morin, she turns around and says to him,
"Me too, me too, I love you. But now my heart is empty."
And there… I feel Guy Georges crumble.
He sits back down. She no longer loves him.
Oh no. How do I put it?
As a woman, oh no, I'm not moved by Guy Georges.
No, no, no, no. Moved?
So, does he affect me, am I moved, does…
No. Obviously what he went through is upsetting. I completely agree.
But he had a choice. He was free to choose his next actions.
The things Guy Georges did are completely crazy.
But he's not crazy. He has free will. He could have chosen not to do that.
He knew it was wrong. He knew he shouldn't do it.
So, no, I'm not at all affected by that. That would be going too far.
I'm moved by the pain of the victims that I defend.
DAY 5
[suspenseful music playing]
For my part, I wish he would have the courage to admit what happened,
just like he did during the investigation,
because it's the only way to better understand the appalling facts
and for him to have any hope of being able to look at himself in the mirror.
[tense music playing]
By the fifth day, we couldn't take it anymore.
We couldn't take the pain anymore.
And all I wanted was for Guy Georges to contradict himself
to the extent that I could be certain he would also be found guilty
of the murder of Pascale Escarfail,
even though there was no DNA or anything that proved it was him.
And so, from the start of the trial,
I kept questioning him
every time I saw there was something that might trip him up.
And then, at lunchtime, I noticed something very unusual.
And I wanted to question Georges about it before the end of the day's session.
So it's about 6:00 p.m.
And I decide to question him.
So I'm given the floor and I stand up.
"Guy Georges, you heard the expert witness earlier
talk about how the clothes were cut,
and they explained that the evidence shows that the person who cut the clothes
was most likely left-handed."
"And you… you told us that you're right-handed. Is that right?"
Guy Georges answered, "Yes."
"Guy Georges, are you sure you're right-handed?"
"Do you ever do things with your left hand?"
He answered, "No."
"Guy Georges…" I kept pushing,
"Do you do everything with your right hand?"
"Aren't you someone who uses both hands? Aren't you ambidextrous?"
He answered, "No."
"But, Guy Georges… that surprises me."
"Because you see… I've looked closely."
"When you were handed the photos, it's true,
you took them with your right hand."
"But when you flick through them in front of you,
you flick through them like this, with your left hand."
"And the microphone, you moved it with your left hand."
"So…"
And suddenly he looked at me and said,
"No, but that's because… it's normal."
"The photos, the microphone, but…"
And he put his hand up like this, "But …"
[tense, sustained note playing]
"But what, Guy Georges? When you strike, you use your right hand?"
He answered, "Yes."
"And when you stab with a knife, is it with the right hand?"
And Guy Georges said, "Yes."
And then he began to realize what he'd just done.
He changed completely. He changed completely.
He wasn't smiling. He grimaced.
He was furious with himself, furious with Solange Doumic.
He glared at her and then he lowered his face.
And that was an incredible moment.
The room was silent.
He'd actually just confessed. He'd acted it out.
Right there and then, we saw it.
There, we saw the real Guy Georges.
He wasn't the same Guy Georges as earlier.
You could really feel the violence.
This was the Guy Georges who kills.
[tense music playing]
"Thank you."
At that moment, I turn to Guy Georges and I ask,
"What did you mean? What exactly are you saying?"
And there, we all expected him to say, "Well, in street fights…"
We all expected to see the usual Guy Georges again,
the one we'd seen for the past five days.
He'd sat down too by then,
and he stood up to answer, but he jumped up, like that.
And he yelled pointing at me, still screaming,
his face gnarled with hatred, he yelled,
"It's her! She got me! She tricked me! It's just a game to her!"
Doumic replied, "No, it's not a game."
"It's not a game, Mr. Guy Georges."
"There's too much suffering, there's too much pain here,
so it's not a game."
"But I'll consider those 15 seconds of you seemingly saying,
'I'm going to kill you' as a confession."
I lost it a little.
Yes, I burst into tears. Luckily, my hair covered it.
That's it. It all fell apart. Case closed.
[somber music playing]
There was a room at the back where I could meet with him.
He was obviously surrounded by police officers,
but usually the police officers stood to one side so we could speak privately.
But, at that moment, Guy Georges could no longer speak.
He wasn't the same Guy Georges.
He wasn't the same Guy Georges
who had been here during the first days of the trial.
It seemed to me that he was like a twisted iron rod at that point.
And I felt like all this violence was going to explode
and he might explode at me, because I thought,
"He's blinded, he can't see things properly right now."
And the police officers must have felt it too
because, for the first time,
one of them came to sit between Guy Georges and me.
[sinister music playing]
I felt like I was seeing the Guy Georges that the victims saw.
[sinister music continues]
I think it finally hit me.
This whole case was falling apart.
There are all these wasted lives in front of me.
Guy George's wasted life,
because Guy Georges' life is definitely wasted.
There's no other way to say it.
And… There you go.
All that's left is pain and waste.
DAY 6
When the trial resumed on Monday morning, that is, on the sixth day,
we were all convinced that Guy Georges would speak.
We waited and nothing happened.
The accused didn't show. The dock was empty.
That morning he had refused to be taken from prison.
And so the judge ordered his forced removal
so he could appear before the court at his trial.
He was in a bad mood. He went to the dock.
At that moment, we saw Guy Georges unshaven, unkempt, and very angry.
Then the judge tried to go back to where we'd left off somehow,
"Guy Georges, when we finished on Friday night,
you had things to say to the families. Are you ready to say them now?"
Guy Georges says, "No, not now. No."
"I will speak to the families, but not in this context,
because I piss on justice."
DAY 7
In the end, he's, it was no surprise.
When you try to think of him as human, well, he isn't one at all.
I'm not exactly sure if Guy Georges is going to speak or not,
but I'm hoping and I'm telling myself
that I won't have to relive the previous week, honestly.
I think at that point the only thing Alex Ursulet and I hoped for
was that, for once, he would really explain himself
so that no one could tell us, "He's a monster."
And try to figure out why it happened. He had to do that at least.
At least he had to have some dignity in relation to his deeds,
that's what I wanted him to do.
He at least had to have the courage to speak in front of a criminal court,
in front of the families.
To stand up. That's what it means to be human.
A human being is able to stand up and say, "Yes, I did all of that."
[Patricia] Tuesday afternoon, Guy Georges had changed.
That day, he had completely shaved his head
and wasn't wearing his green jogging pants,
but instead wore a pristine white sweater.
Elisabeth arrived, the victim who got away in '95,
a beautiful lady with long red hair.
They led her almost to the front of the dock where Guy Georges was.
She waited.
Alex approached Guy Georges and said to him,
"If you have something to say, now is the time to say it."
"Say it for your family."
"Tell us, did you assault Elisabeth?"
And then Guy Georges said, "Yes."
He lowered his head and he said, "Yes."
We barely heard him. It was in a whisper.
Ursulet continued. He said, "Did you kill Miss Escarfail?"
"Yes."
"Did you kill Cathy Roger?"
"Yes."
And so, like a litany, Mr Ursulet listed all the victims' names.
"Did you kill Miss Sirotti? Did you kill Miss Benady?"
"Did you…"
"Yes. Yes."
These yeses came from deep inside of him.
Everything happened in an absolute, incredible silence.
Not even the noise of any flies or anything, nothing.
Not a sound in the criminal court.
And all we heard after Guy Georges had spoken,
was the mother of one of the victims who said,
"Thank you".
I said, "Thank you." And he nodded.
And right now, I'm still numb by this… conversation,
which wasn't one that would actually lead me to saying
"thank you" to my daughter's murderer.
But it just came out before I could think about it.
[somber music playing]
[Solange] Judging from his victims,
Guy Georges' target group was women between 19 and 32 years of age.
So it's a very wide range.
There are no particular physical traits,
because his victims include some brunettes, blondes, and redheads.
They're tall, small.
None of them was depressed, unemployed or lonely, sad or…
They were all women engaged in life, with projects, friends…
He explained that he was triggered by their energy.
The more energetic they were, the more he was drawn to them, almost.
That's what he said.
He said that ultimately, because he would watch them go by in the street,
it was the energy they gave off that attracted him.
It was the energy that he found magnetic, and that aroused him.
DAY 13
It wasn't what we'd planned. It didn't go the way we expected.
And we decided that we had to keep going, we had to keep supporting him.
I also told myself that if I didn't go all the way,
if I didn't plead for Guy Georges,
that would mean that I didn't plead because I'd abandoned him.
And that meant a woman had, once again, abandoned him.
And so, that was absolutely out of the question.
And therefore, it was obvious that I would make a plea.
[tense music playing]
Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the court,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
This afternoon, I am the first to stand before you
to defend Mr. Guy Georges, and plead in defense of the indefensible.
Guy Georges, I would now like to address you.
I would like to tell you that if you are a psychopath,
you were not born a psychopath.
We are not born a psychopath, we become one.
So the verdict that will be given comes as no surprise. And…
I don't know what your future holds. Your future will be new.
But it is up to you to create your future.
[tense music continues]
DAY 14 FINAL DAY OF THE TRIAL
[Patricia] The trial resumed at 4:42 pm.
The judge read the verdict of the Paris Criminal Court,
"Mr. Guy Georges,
you are sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 22 years."
People hugged in the courtroom.
There was even laughter coming from the plaintiffs.
And it was over.
I OWE YOU SO MUCH
BECAUSE I TOOK SO MUCH FROM YOU.
DON'T GRIEVE WE ARE LISTENING TO THE BIRDS
Since I wasn't at the trial, I heard about it later.
It was very emotional for me. He asked the victims for forgiveness.
Since I wasn't there, I thought it over by myself,
I thought about forgiveness and all that.
And there was something on my mind.
"No, I can't forgive him."
"He didn't hurt me. He hurt Hélène."
So I decided to write him a letter.
I did write him a letter. And well, he wrote back.
MY DEAR ANNE,
I DON'T WANT TO LIE TO YOU,
I DIDN'T SLEEP EITHER ON THE NIGHT OF JULY 7-8.
I REALIZE THAT I'M TALKING TO YOU OPENLY,
AS THOUGH YOU WERE MY FRIEND.
I OWE YOU SO MUCH,
BECAUSE I TOOK SO MUCH FROM YOU.
[Patricia] She gave me the letters as a sort of legacy.
And she also asked me to,
one day, see that the letters might be used by psychiatrists
to try and unlock Guy Georges' mind further.
To see that ultimately this boy isn't just a killer
but speaks with great sensitivity about his circumstances, his life.
BUT I WON'T LOSE HOPE…
…STRAIGHT TO JAIL…
TELL ME WHAT TO DO…
I think we can learn from the excerpts of Guy Georges' letters,
so that other Guy Georgeses,
because there are many around us, don't act.
That's what matters now.
PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN A CURE
How to recognize them?
How to help them handle their pain in ways other than committing such atrocities?
IT'S KIND OF YOU, ANNE
It's not actually a trivial thing.
A mother writing to her daughter's murderer.
She did it because she believes in redemption.
Anne believes he can still be saved, that he can be treated,
that he can undergo therapy and work through it.
I think she truly believes that.
[delicate, hopeful music playing]
Oh. This is a walnut tree.
Look, it's been hurt too. It's been cut..
Ah. It's beautiful. Hélène.
I want to spread knowledge, hard work, generosity,
those are the kind of things I want to share.
But I don't want to share hatred. No. Definitely not. It's not my thing.
There. You can take a souvenir.
There aren't many, huh?
Here, this is… this is peace.
It's peace, you take grief and make something of it.
That's what I wanted to pass down.
[delicate music playing softly]
THANKS TO THE PERSISTENCE OF THE VICTIMS' FAMILIES,
FRANCE FINALLY ACQUIRED A DNA DATABASE IN 1998.
ALLOWING FOR THE RESOLUTION OF HUNDREDS OF CASES.
[music ends]