13 hours ago
The son's suicide, the father's murder and the tormented killer
SÉVERIN MILLET
Originally, the five students from southwestern France created an Instagram group to organize poker nights. It quickly became one of those typical chats where friends shared internet jokes, comments about TV series and the latest football results. Samuel Matias Batista spoke more than the others. He often sent lengthy messages about his worldview. He was the only unemployed cannabis smoker among friends who worked, built their lives and had girlfriends. On February 10, 2022, he wrote, "I have never felt as light in my life as when I saw his life leave his eyes. (...) You can't push my friend to death without me avenging him. I didn't plan to finish him off the day he left. I often thought of it as something to do someday, but never as something I was about to do imminently."
On the other end, Benjamin, Corentin, Maxime and Arthur, the recipients of the message, panicked: "You may have just offed a guy, and now we all know because you wrote it in all caps at 8 pm on Instagram. How are we supposed to react to that?" Samuel replied, "These idiots have been looking for two years. If they were going to find out, it would have happened already. We're not in The Wire , wiretapped for the next five years with 250 suspects." Corentin responded, "Yeah, well, what's coming for you is a cell in Gradignan [the prison in Bordeaux] with two Serbians. Don't think you're above it all, because what you're doing here isn't about taking the high ground." Samuel, then 24, replied, "Do you want to send me to prison because I ended the life of the man who drove our friend to suicide? If so, do it. Otherwise, I trust in life."
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