‘Black Widow’ on trial in France

PARIS: A French woman dubbed the “Black Widow of the Riviera” for allegedly seducing and poisoning wealthy elderly men, leading to the deaths of two, faces a life sentence as her trial gets under way yesterday.

Patricia Dagorn, 57, is already serving a five-year prison term for theft, fraud and sequestration involving an octogenarian in the French Alps in 2012 after he agreed to let her live with him in exchange for sexual relations.

The 87-year-old man, Robert Mazereau, was later assaulted.

The year before, police had already suspected Dagorn after the body of Michel Kneffel, a man in his 60s with whom she had been living with in Nice, was discovered in July 2011.

No charges were filed in that case, but the investigation was reopened after her conviction the following year, when police found vials of Valium and personal documents belonging to about a dozen men, including IDs, bank details and health insurance cards.

That led investigators to another suspected murder, that of Francesco Filippone, 85, whose body was found in an advanced state of decomposition in Mouans-Sartoux in 2011.

Dagorn had earlier cashed a cheque from Filippone for € 21,000 (RM101,000), money which she said was a gift to help her open a jewellery shop.

Her lawyer Georges Rimondi says she denies all charges. – AFP