Latest news with #Bonnier
Montreal Gazette
4 days ago
- Montreal Gazette
McGill Ghetto murder trial: ‘I was dealing with all sorts of evil'
By François Pelletier, the man on trial for the murder of 24-year-old Romane Bonnier, ran out of time Friday before he could tell the jury hearing his case about the day of the brutal slaying in the McGill Ghetto more than three years ago. Friday was Pelletier's third day on the witness stand in a first-degree murder trial at the Montreal courthouse, where the 39-year-old is acting as his own lawyer. His testimony has been confusing, full of unfinished thoughts and asides on pop culture references he appears to be fixated on. When he brought up Brave New World, the book by Aldous Huxley, yet again late Friday afternoon, Superior Court Justice François Dadour abruptly called it a day. The judge noted he had asked the jury to stay an extra 45 minutes with the hope Pelletier would reach the end of his testimony in principle before the weekend. Instead, Pelletier is expected to testify on Monday about Oct. 19, 2021, the day he stabbed Bonnier 26 times in front of several stunned witnesses. He will then be cross-examined by either prosecutor Louis Bouthillier or prosecutor Marianna Ferraro. The Crown's theory of the case is earlier in 2021, Pelletier met Bonnier after she placed an ad seeking a roommate to share the apartment she was already living in, and they had a brief relationship after he moved in. It did not end well and, on Oct. 19, 2021, he killed the woman who dreamed of being an actor on Broadway. The jury has heard evidence Bonnier put a quick end to the relationship and, on Sept. 1, 2021, Pelletier moved out of the apartment as had already been planned. On Friday, Pelletier said September was difficult for him as he rented a room to start, but he couldn't take the noise there and ended up moving in with a friend on Oct. 1. 'In late September, I'm still trying to figure (the breakup) out,' he said, adding he was having nightmares in which he killed Bonnier. 'I was dealing with all sorts of evil. 'Towards the end, I was trying to tell (Bonnier) that I was not well.' Pelletier said Bonnier ignored many text messages he sent to her and she asked him to 'stop harassing her' after he met her mother and asked her to tell Bonnier to read his messages. 'She finally did agree to give me a last 30 minutes in her presence. I was like, that sounds like a fair deal, right,' Pelletier told the jury. 'We actually did meet, on Oct. 11, (2021) on McGill (University's) campus. At that point, I was in a rather rough shape, but I showed up. I had been requesting this meeting and I was getting it. At that point, I was deeply immersed into this different interpretation of things. I had been cooking in it for weeks now.' Pelletier said he and Bonnier sat on a bench for the conversation and it was clear 'Romane had moved on.' 'She was not just like a girl to me, she was like my twin flame,' he said. 'I was thinking about her all the time.' Before he described the meeting at the university campus, he told the jury about a scene from the movie Dude, Where's My Car?, a goofball comedy starring actor Ashton Kutcher. Pelletier said he compared his inability to communicate with Bonnier, through text messages, to a scene in the movie where 'these two idiots' are unable to understand each other. 'So there we were. I didn't get any of my answers, no explanation,' Pelletier said. 'I was not expecting Romane to tell me what I wanted to hear or anything specific. I just wanted her to tell me ... I don't know exactly what I wanted her to tell me. 'I chose not to ask her at all (about their relationship). We talked about a bunch of stuff. Essentially, it was just back and forth and then I went away from there.' Pelletier said before they parted ways that day he gave Bonnier a hug. 'It was like hugging a corpse, really,' he said. 'I was in bad shape already and that (hug) was bad.' Pelletier added the last words Bonnier told him before she walked away was: 'Have fun.'
Montreal Gazette
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Man accused of McGill ghetto murder references synchronicity, quantum physics during testimony
Montreal Crime By François Pelletier continued his very confusing testimony Thursday in the trial where he is accused of stabbing Romane Bonnier to death in the McGill Ghetto in front of several stunned witnesses more than three years ago. Pelletier, 39, is acting as his own lawyer in the case at the Montreal courthouse, where he is charged with first-degree murder. On Wednesday, he made an opening statement to the jury during which he bluntly admitted he killed the 24-year-old woman by stabbing her 26 times. After he delivered the opening statement, he was sworn in and began to testify in his own defence. Without the aid of a lawyer, he set off on what has been a very long monologue. No one is asking Pelletier questions and while he told the jury he wants to explain what happened to Bonnier before they decide his fate, his testimony has been full of asides about things like what songs he was listening to after Bonnier agreed to let him be her roommate and he became obsessed with her. 'Let's just say there are many layers to this reality we are living,' he told the jury at one point. He said he was listening to Radiohead's Creep, Chris Isaak's Wicked Game and a song called Sunspots by Nine Inch Nails. '(Sunspots) is a rather powerful song,' he said, Besides the songs, Pelletier referenced synchronicity and quantum physics and claimed both were involved in his attraction to Bonnier. He also made references to his mental health, which led prosecutor Marianna Ferrero to object twice. Superior Court Justice François Dadour sustained both of the objections, a sign that Pelletier is not supposed to refer to his mental health. On Wednesday, Pelletier told the jury he would have preferred that a psychiatric evaluation on his mental health had been part of the evidence. Ferrero later made another objection when she noted that Pelletier has used the word 'f--k' many times while testifying. The Crown's theory is that, during 2021, Bonnier placed an ad seeking a roommate to share the rent on an apartment she was already living in. Pelletier replied to the ad and Bonnier agreed to let him live with her. They had a brief relationship, but Bonnier eventually put an end to it. Pelletier was unable to accept the breakup and texted Bonnier frequently. The Crown alleges that on Oct. 19, 2021, he staked out her workplace, a store owned by her parents, and followed her after she left before he stabbed her to death. 'She was a sophisticated schemer,' Pelletier said Thursday morning while claiming, as he does often, that Bonnier sometimes dressed in a way to attract him. 'She was dressed to kill. She was dressed to kill me,' Pelletier said during another part of his testimony. 'She was wearing a red dress that I remember to this day.'
Montreal Gazette
6 days ago
- General
- Montreal Gazette
‘I killed Romane. I stabbed her 26 times,' says accused in McGill Ghetto murder trial
Montreal Crime By The man on trial for the murder of Romane Bonnier, a woman who was stabbed 26 times in front of several witnesses in the McGill Ghetto, began his defence Wednesday afternoon by bluntly stating that he killed her. 'I killed Romane. I stabbed her 26 times,' François Pelletier, 39, told a jury at the Montreal courthouse. He said his testimony was part of a story called 'the moth and the flame.' Pelletier made the rambling introduction before he was sworn in. 'My objective is to explain what happened,' he said, while telling the jury to expect 'a freestyle rendering.' He also referred to his story as 'a train wreck in four parts.' Superior Court Justice François Dadour reminded the jury that the Crown finished presenting its evidence in the trial last week. The prosecution's theory is that Pelletier met Bonnier after she posted an ad seeking a roommate to share her apartment and they ended up in a brief relationship. It came to a quick end and Bonnier received many text messages from Pelletier demanding that they get back together. The Crown alleges Pelletier then waited outside Bonnier's workplace for a long time and followed her as she headed home before he stabbed her many times on Oct. 19, 2021. The attack was captured by a surveillance camera and the video was shown to the jury. 'It ends insane because (the relationship) started insane,' Pelletier told the jury. He also referenced the popular song Creep by Radiohead, sung from the perspective of an alienated man attracted to a woman he knows he has ultimately no chance with. Pelletier said he believes Bonnier 'had a crush' on him from the moment they met despite the significant differences in age. She was 24 when she was killed. Days after she agreed to let him live in the apartment, Pelletier said, Bonnier put on makeup and did her hair to prepare to go out with friends. A COVID-19 health measure had been lifted, Pelletier said, and Montreal's terrasses were opening up for the first time in a long time. Pelletier said it seemed to him that Bonnier wanted him to see her with makeup and her hair prepared for a night out. 'I knew that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen,' Pelletier said. 'That's where it gets special. 'This was something special. It ended the way you saw it (in the surveillance video).' Pelletier also admitted that he ended up being obsessed with Bonnier. 'This girl just occupied all the space in my mind,' he said. 'A psychiatric evaluation would have been interesting to you, but we don't have that right now.' This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 2:58 PM.
The Independent
18-02-2025
- The Independent
How Gisèle Pelicot's daughter is fighting back against sexual abuse
Caroline Darian was at home in Paris when she received a call from her mother, Gisèle Pelicot, telling her that her husband and Darian's father, Dominique, had been arrested. The clock above the cooker had just struck 8.25pm. Darian had been surveying the Japanese takeaway she'd brought home for dinner. It was November 20, 2020. Gisèle explained that before she and her husband set off for the police station in Mazan, Provence, that morning, they had shared an ordinary breakfast like any other. When, after a period in the waiting area, a young police officer asked Gisèle to follow him into a meeting room, she thought she would be joining her husband. Instead, she sat alone with the officer while he showed her the first handful of the more than 20,000 photographs and videos seized from her husband's computer. They showed Gisèle being sexually abused by Dominique and around 80 strangers while she was – to use her daughter's words – 'under chemical submission'. Review: I'll Never Call Him Dad Again: Turning our Family Trauma of Chemical Submission into a Collective Fight – Caroline Darian (Bonnier) Here began the unveiling of a profound betrayal, which would result in the 15-week trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men, between September and December 2024. Most of the men came from the Pelicots' home village of Mazan, or nearby towns and villages. They are all behind bars for sexual offences against Gisèle that took place between 2011 and 2020. Dominique was sentenced to 20 years, the maximum penalty. Gisèle, aged 72 during the trial, refused to turn away from cameras or her supporters outside the Carpentras court in France. Four years after she was first shown the evidence of the abuse perpetrated and orchestrated by her husband, she made a public claim on her self worth. She has been lauded worldwide as a feminist hero for refusing anonymity, instead choosing a public trial in which images of her abuse were shown as evidence. And for insisting the shame of abuse must be borne by assailants, not victims. Her mother's call on the day of her father's arrest is, of course, a defining memory for Darian (a pen name), who bears 'a crushing double burden' as 'child of both the victim and her tormentor'. Memory is at the heart of her memoir, which she describes as a 'chronicle of horror and survival'. But the book is also a call to action, with an eye on the future. As a domestic violence researcher, currently undertaking a history of domestic violence in Australia, I know the Pelicot case raises the spectre of a form of violence rarely discussed. In the first year of knowing her father's crimes, Darian (a senior communications manager of a large firm in France) began to research the prevalence of sexual abuse involving chemical submission. This is known in Australia, and other parts of the English-speaking world, as drug-facilitated sexual assault. It is 'the preferred weapon of sexual predators', she writes, yet it is poorly understood, barely visible in official statistics. Everyone has heard of GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), the 'date-rape' drug, but who is aware of the risk of being chemically subjugated by a spouse, lover, relative or friend […] with the contents of the family medicine cabinet? In May 2023, Darian launched the movement Don't Put Me Under, or #MendorsPas, to support victims of drug-facilitated rape and raise awareness, including among medical professionals. 'Sleeping, allergy and cough medicines are prized by abusers for their sedative and muscle-relaxing properties,' she writes. Her father used a mixture of sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs, prescribed for him. She cites a 2021 French study, based on a sample of 727 complaints of sexual assault filed with police that year: 11% involved chemical submission. For over half of these victims, their assailants used over-the-counter or prescription drugs. The typical victim was a woman aged between 20 and 30. The study was undertaken by the French National Agency for the Security of Pharmaceutical Products. The only Australian study on drug-facilitated sexual assault, published in 2006, focused on assaults committed by strangers, acquaintances and others who did not live with the victim. So, there is a lack of data. Is it an under-recognised problem in domestic and family violence here? More research is needed to find out. Much of what we know about ourselves is construed by memory. Our sense of self is built on recollections of long-ago moments, vividly snagged in the maelstrom of consciousness, and our recall of recent experiences: both the ordinary and extraordinary. Darian's Japanese takeaway in Paris and Gisele's shared breakfast in Mazan symbolise the final moments of the version of the two women's lives that began to unravel that day. Darian keeps returning to the ordinariness of her parents' breakfast: sipping coffee over newspapers, just hours before her father's crimes against her mother would be revealed. After that day, she and her mother try to hold onto their sense of who they are, while truths about Dominique flood in. These truths threaten to unmoor them from their memories, their shared history and from each other. Darian's memoir begins on the day of her father's arrest. It spans roughly a year, finishing almost three years before his trial would begin. Written in the present tense, its series of dated entries and unsent messages to her father convey her experience with visceral immediacy. Flashbacks to childhood underline the profound dissonance between her history and her present, while revealing past clues to her father's capacity to hurt. One memory that now carries haunting possibilities is from August 2019, as Darian recovered from the last of three operations to work on an unexplained vaginal tear that refused to heal. Her father repeatedly contacts her, knowing she's recovering from surgery, saying it's 'urgent'. She assumes he is checking on her health, but instead, he wants to borrow money. She is 'speechless'. An especially wrenching childhood memory, addressed to her father, reads: You encourage me to do my first ever red ski run. You say you'll do it with me, since I'm not a great skier […] When we reach the top of the run, you push off without me. She follows, 'terrified'. It takes her 'almost two hours to reach the bottom'. Once there: Through my tears, I yell at you for abandoning me. The book lays bare her family's attempts to grasp the betrayal of her father's crimes and salvage themselves from the wreckage. Mother and daughter begin this process together, returning to the family home with Darian's two brothers to spend one last night there. Cleaning up, throwing out and packing – but leaving with very little. However, as more details come to light, tensions surface between mother and daughter. Gisèle seeks to re-anchor herself by finding compassion for Dominique in his jail cell. She reassures Darian he had been a good father. At one point in her journey to come to terms with what has happened, Gisèle tells her: 'Your father's in a bad way in prison. He's suffering so much; I must have failed him in some way over the past years.' Darian recounts her 'recoil', 'as if I've been stabbed'. But while her life is intertwined with her mother's, it is also separate. She has a job she loves, and a husband and young child she is determined to protect from the 'curse' of her father's crimes – and those committed against him early in life. He has said he saw and heard his father abuse his mother while her hands were tied behind her back, that he was raped during a hospital visit aged nine, and that, at 14, he witnessed a gang-rape. It soon becomes apparent Darian, too, was a victim: though the extent of that victimisation is unclear. When she first sees the photographs of herself in unfamiliar underwear, in an uncharacteristic sleeping position, she doesn't recognise herself. As these images sink in, she expresses a deep need to know exactly what her father has done to her. Gisèle refuses to believe he would harm his own daughter, and Dominique will never say. For Darian, the way to protect the ground she stands on is to excavate the story of her own abuse and excise her father as completely as possible. Her mother's journey is stop–start, in the face of revelations that corrupt her sense of self, built on memories of a loving marriage and family life. She requires time away from her daughter. This causes Darian pain, but she clear-sightedly sees this temporary schism for what it is: a new violence perpetrated by her father. Dominique pleads with Gisèle and his son Florian and accuses and scolds Darian, in unauthorised letters addressed to friends and passed on to family. But the family's only contact with him since November 2020 has been through the courts. He and Gisèle are divorced. In late April 2021, Darian and her mother were told by their lawyer of evidence indicating the rapes lasted longer than nine years – dating back to before the couple moved from Paris to Mazan. Darian describes her mother in this moment as sitting 'like a waxwork, no sign of life, utterly devastated. I sit next to her peering into a well of shame.' Yet, out of this nightmare, a very different image of Gisèle has emerged – dignified, strong and determined. In the 1970s, researchers in the United States and Britain began documenting violence, including sexual violence, against pregnant women accessing antenatal services. In 1994, Australian healthcare workers were shocked by its prevalence and their failure to recognise its signs. Gisèle Pelicot and her children spent years seeking medical explanations for her memory lapses, her slurred speech and sudden drowsiness. Gisèle had also sought medical advice about gynaecological problems. Dominique insisted to their children that his wife was exhausted and needed to be given more space, from them and her grandchildren. Meanwhile, general practitioners, neurologists and gynaecologists failed to ask questions, or run toxicology or sexually transmitted infection tests, to investigate the possibility she was experiencing the effects of being drugged and raped. This speaks to the absence of medical awareness of such crimes – one that exists in the wider community too. Darian's memoir and movement aim to address those absences, educating medical professionals and others to recognise these warning signs and ask questions. Dominique avoided raising suspicion because he and Gisèle lived alone. He perpetrated his crimes while she was rendered completely unable to object or bear witness. The subtitle of Darian's book is: 'turning our family trauma of chemical submission into a collective fight'. It speaks to the transformative power of activism. Her book is an act of solidarity with survivors, partly inspired by her admiration for others who have bravely published their stories. The international #MeToo movement met with a range of responses in France. The Pelicot case, in which Dominique pleaded guilty (and photo and video evidence was available), is a parable about the capacity of men to exploit women. Gisèle and her daughter's different forms of activism seek to support all victims of sexual abuse – and to encourage them to speak back to their perpetrators and the systems that burden them with shame. In the recent history of understanding domestic and family violence, researchers have worked with survivors to identify the different forms of abuse suffered, mainly by women and children, at the hands of intimate partners and fathers. These include financial abuse, reproductive coercion and abuse, and other forms of coercive control. This work has given us new language, and a deeper sense of the experiences of victim–survivors. It has also alerted us to newly identified warning signs. However, little is known about the prevalence of chemical submission. Rarely diagnosed, or researched, it is neglected by the professionals and support systems supposed to help victims of abuse. I'll Never Call Him Dad Again teaches us about a form of violence designed to be completely hidden from its victims through total control. It is an intimate account of discovering a betrayal so profound it upends the past as well as the present. And it has alerted us to the little known or understood phenomena of drug-facilitated sexual assault within families and intimate partnerships: a form of violence that relies on complete silencing. By telling this moving story to raise awareness of chemical submission, Darian refuses silence – for herself or her mother. In equally powerful measures, she both attests to and resists the power of this violence. 'I have tried, without success, to unearth and understand the true identity of the man who raised me,' she writes. 'To this day, I reproach myself with having neither seen nor expected anything. I will never forgive him for what he did for so many years. Nonetheless, I'm haunted by the image of the father I thought I knew. It lingers on, deeply rooted inside me.' But she ends the book on a defiant note of resistance: 'Faced with the unthinkable, the unbearable, we must fight back.'
