2023-10-06 05:00:00
It was his children who made the macabre discovery. On May 5, 2019, worried about having no news from their mother, Martine Lespinasse, a 64-year-old Taillanaise, they went to her former partner’s house in Saint-Aubin-de-Médoc. The lifeless body of the sixty-year-old woman was lying on her stomach in the main room of the apartment, with 40 stab wounds to the face and torso. A kitchen knife was still stuck in his back.
Long wanted (read elsewhere), Jean-Claude Gonzalez, 65, has been on trial for murder since Thursday, October 5, by the Gironde Assize Court. He maintained…
It was his children who made the macabre discovery. On May 5, 2019, worried about having no news from their mother, Martine Lespinasse, a 64-year-old Taillanaise, they went to her former partner’s house in Saint-Aubin-de-Médoc. The lifeless body of the sixty-year-old woman was lying on her stomach in the main room of the apartment, with 40 stab wounds to the face and torso. A kitchen knife was still stuck in his back.
Long wanted (read elsewhere), Jean-Claude Gonzalez, 65, has been on trial for murder since Thursday, October 5, by the Gironde Assize Court. He had a relationship with Martine Lespinasse for more than seventeen years. With ups, downs, separations, reunions, arguments. Beatings, too, which have already earned the accused a two-month suspended sentence for violence.
Black hole
White collar sticking out from his gray sweater, Jean-Claude Gonzalez is motionless and impassive, except when his children and grandchildren are mentioned. He then lets the tears pass through the barrier of his glasses. Concentrated, attentive, he listens to others talking about him and fills his silences.
Because to the indelible vision of horror of the crime scene, he opposes a black hole. Leaving his box to be heard at the bar, he does not dispute the facts with which he is accused. “There were only two of us, I did it. What good would it do for me to lie, since we know it’s me? But I don’t remember the act,” he has repeated for four years.
He would have regained his senses in the middle of the bloody room, next to the body. Expert psychiatrist Paul Bonnan speaks of “opportunity gap” amnesia. He has no memory problems. It’s a defense mechanism to keep a good image of him.” That of the man close to his family, helpful, always there for his mother or helping inmates in an association.
“A wounded narcissist needs to be infused with recognition in the eyes of others,” says the other psychologist expert. His concern is always to display a positive image”
“Egocentric altruism,” defines an expert psychologist. Reach out to others by creating emotional dependence. » He wants to believe that “sometimes, two wires can disconnect during an act, but there…” Jean-Claude Gonzalez had the necessary springiness to change, wash, put on perfume, leave with the victim’s car, drive away, abandon the vehicle and disappear.
In 2016, Marine Lespinasse, a retired radiology technician and painter, exhibited her pastels in Brantôme (Dordogne). She was very involved in several Gironde associations of amateur painters.
Claire Lussac-François
The description of all the wounds mainly targeting the face, the identification of five areas having received blood splashes in the apartment suggest at least “repeatability”, more certainly relentlessness. “There is a desire to… and to see his act through to the end,” concludes the forensic doctor, who estimates the time of agony at five or ten minutes.
In the absence of an explanation, the court is reduced to making assumptions. Did Martine Lespinasse’s future move to Arcachon awaken his fear of abandonment, living from the time when he was placed in a boarding school and felt rejected? Did the victim commit a “crime of lese narcissism” by reproaching him for the size of his home being too small and did these comments, perceived as demeaning, trigger a violent outburst?
“A wounded narcissist needs to be infused with recognition in the eyes of others,” says the other psychologist expert, Patrice Lenormand. His concern is always to display a positive image. »
Sleeping problems
Even if it was to move in with Martine Lespinasse, the breakup with the mother of his children was “a breakup”, analyzes the general attorney, Caroline Gaziot. Before, there was the family cocoon and stability, then the addictions to gambling, alcohol, credits, debts… “He ultimately had a lot of untreated worries, dormant problems,” describes his daughter, in support of this “loving and devoted, positive and never, never violent” father.
The verdict is expected this Friday, October 6.
On the run for seven months
Suspicion immediately fell on him. Jean-Claude Gonzalez was actively sought by the gendarmes. He left few traces. The deceased’s car was found in Montauban and contained writing that was half desperate, half illegible. No movements on his bank account, no calls to his loved ones. As the days went by, his disappearance became more and more worrying. His escape, as suspicious as it is unexplained. “We were lost, we went through all the hypotheses,” says his daughter. Had he killed himself? Was he on the run? He was finally arrested in December 2019 in Agen. Thin and consumed by shame. He lived like a homeless person for weeks, sleeping in hospital or stadium locker rooms, using their toilets, giving a false name and telling a false story, clothing and feeding himself thanks to local generosity.
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