30 Years Have Concluded in Conviction
12th October, 2007
This Thursday French lawyer was finally convicted for the murder of the Riviera casino heiress, that happened 30 years ago; which put this case in the top five longest-running murder cases ever known to the history of modern France.
Jean-Maurice Agnelet was jailed for 20 years by the appeals court in the southern town of Aix-en-Province for killing Agnes Le Roux. 10 month prior to this a lower court decided there was not enough evidence to convict the man, so they acquitted him.
The reason why Jean-Maurice reached the final verdict was due to the hard work of Agnes’s mother, who has been fighting for the man to be brought to justice for three decades by carrying out and completely dedicating herself to the campaign, forgetting about the other life arrangements she had. 85-year-old mother, Renee, and her other children were very emotional to hear about the verdict, they hugged and burst into tears of joy and relief.
Nevertheless, Renee will never be able to feel that the way the drama has concluded is fair in any way, here is what she had to say: "Sadly, this still won't bring back my daughter. At my age, it is hard."
The convict did not admit his guilt and is waiting for his lawyers to move the case over to the high court of appeal.
When 29-year-old Agnes disappeared in her white Range Rover in October 1977, her body was never found. It was later found out that prior to her disappearance, she became heavily involved in some sort of conspiracy that involved the takeover of her mom’s casino in Nice.
The murderer persuaded the daughter to go against her mother in the vote in 1977 in the meeting to let the casino be sold to the competing owner, Dominique Fratoni.
The 3 million franks she got for that portrayal, she shared with the murderer by transferring some of the money into his account.
Soon after the accident he was a prime suspect, but due to very convincing alibi involving Francoise Lausseure that swore to police that she was with him in Switzerland at the time of accident.
The woman married Agnelet and divorced not long after and in 1999 she admitted to Renee that she lied about being with him on the day. This I show the case was re-opened again.
The prosecution tried to portray Agnelet as malicious, spiteful and money-obsessed person, who was a kind of person to kill Le Roux in order to get all the 3 million instead of his fair share.
This is what attorney Pierre Cortes said about the man: "This man seduced an idealistic and vulnerable young woman for the sole purpose of pursuing his own selfish interests. But she became an emotional leech which he had to destroy."
