NANTERRE, France – The body of a young woman who may have been a victim of French convicted rapist Dominique Pelicot was exhumed this week, a prosecutor’s office told AFP on April 16.
Pelicot was sentenced in 2024 to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape, after he recruited dozens of strangers to rape his then-wife after drugging her in their home between 2011 and 2020.
His now ex-wife Gisele Pelicot has been hailed for her courage and dignity at the trial, which saw all 51 defendants convicted.
The exhumation took place on April 14 at a cemetery south-west of Paris, said the prosecutor’s office in the western suburb of Nanterre.
It had been requested by Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, Ms Beatrice Zavarro, who told AFP she hoped it would exonerate her client.
Sophie Narme, a 23-year-old estate agent, was raped and then killed in December 1991 during the viewing of a flat in Paris’ 19th arrondissement.
Her body, which had been severely beaten and was half-undressed, was subsequently discovered by the manager of her agency.
While the perpetrator has never been identified, doubts were raised when Dominique Pelicot admitted his involvement in the attempted rape of another estate agent in the Seine-et-Marne region east of Paris in 1999, for which he was identified by his DNA.
Both women had been stripped in the same manner, and a strong smell of ether had been detected at the crime scene in Sophie Narme’s case -– a substance used to attack the other estate agent in 1999.
In November, lawyer Ms Zavarro had suggested to AFP that Sophie Narme may have been the victim of Francois Verove, a serial killer and rapist who had been wanted since the 1980s and has since died.
The results of the exhumation tests are expected in several weeks’ time, according to Ms Zavarro and the attorney representing the victim’s family. AFP