Fifty seven years between two crimes leads to ligth years verdicts of the Angers criminal court

The murder of a husband committed by his wife,on december 10th 2005, convicted on december 8th by the criminal court of Angers to three years of prison, all with suspended sentence, illustrates the change of female condition in France, even if progress is yet possible. May be sixty years before, the verdict of the jury would not have be the same, even if the second case differs considerably.

On december 10th 1947, a horrible crime was carried out at Baugé, a little city at the East of the Anjou province. There, a woman killed - savagely - her husband while he was sleeping. The mobile of the crime was the love for her young assistant in the sale of coal. If the man was convicted to life imprisonment in Fontevraud, the guilty was sentenced by the criminal court of Angers to the death penalty in november 1948. The sentence was executed in the prison of Angers on april 21st 1949.

During the recent trial, the daily life of the woman was described and taken in account (she lived a drama because her husband was always drunk and violent). Those considerations apparently were not emphasized by the same jurisdiction 62 years before. Germaine Leloy was the last woman decapitated in France