Overview
- Prosecutors in Tarn-et-Garonne, who on Monday sought life in prison with a 22-year no‑parole term, also asked for seven years of post‑release monitoring with mandated treatment, a 15‑year firearms ban, and a 10‑year loss of civil, civic, and family rights.
- Sébastien Bettencourt, 41, has admitted the acts in court but claims partial amnesia and says he lost control during the killing.
- Prosecutors say Bettencourt raped Isabelle with his fist, stabbed her twice, and then strangled her on March 13, 2023, in Lamothe-Capdeville, a scene the attorney general Bruno Sauvage called unlike anything he had seen in 35 years of police work.
- Medical experts rejected epilepsy or sleepwalking as explanations, and a psychiatrist said Bettencourt does not have a disorder that would remove his criminal responsibility.
- After the killing, he fled the home, and the couple’s five daughters found their mother the next morning, with their lawyer urging a sentence that helps the girls, now ages 7 to 17, begin to rebuild their lives.