DEATH BY CHOCOLATE
TURNS OUT, TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING CAN KILL YOU…
MURDERED BY MOUSSE
In 2008 a French farmer was sentenced to 20 years in jail for offing his parents. Ghislain Beaumont, then 45, carried out the kills by lacing their chocolate mousse with poison.
Beaumont, who lived with his parents in the town of Chalmaison east of Paris, served the deadly dessert to Liliane and Claude Beaumont, both 75, after they refused to let him move in his with his girlfriend.
It’s thought that he mixed a potent bug repellent recommended into the mousse that was served at dinner on April 9, 2006.
Both parents died within hours from a lethal dose of the poison.
During questioning by police, Beaumont admitted to murdering his parents. He said he wanted to get rid of his mother, who was authoritative and disapproved of his girlfriend.
Beaumont later recanted, saying it was Liliane who mixed poison into the mousse. He claimed she wanted to kill the whole family.
But the killer was served his just desserts when police found the defendant had ordered the insecticide over the internet several weeks earlier.
When the case faced court in Seine-et-marne, near Paris, Prosecutor Sabine Neale said: “He planned and premeditated these murders by firstly buying the poison, then introducing it himself into the chocolate mousse and watching his parents eat it.
“He wanted them dead because he had met a woman and wanted to leave home … he was a weak man, and his mother had a considerable hold over him.”
Beaumont, who was convicted of both murders, told the court: “Even though my mother hated us all and made our home like a prison, I will still miss my parents.”