Black widow of the French Riviera
How far would the glamorous blonde go to line her pockets?
A new life filled with restaurants, parties and yachts
By the time she was 6, Patricia Dagorn had been abandoned by her mother.
Dumped for a while in foster care, Dagorn had ‘no memory of any affection showed her by her parents,’ and rejection had already taken its toll.
She reportedly had a troubling relationship with her father who, when she was 14, took her camping to a nudist resort, where she was photographed in nothing but sandals…
Shortly after, young Patricia left her foster home. Living rough on the streets of Paris, she turned to petty crime, surviving on her wits, stealing.
Then, aged 21, her luck changed when she met wealthy businessman Luc Caron.
Caron, 13 years her senior, fell blindly in love with ‘angelic’ Patricia, and claimed he’d ‘rescued her from the gutter’.
The couple married in 1981 and had two sons.
Patricia adapted well to her new life, even studying and earning a Law degree.
But, in 2005, the couple divorced after Luc Caron was jailed for fraud and domestic violence.
So Patricia packed up and hit the road.
In 2010, aged 50, she arrived in the sun-kissed French Riviera, hoping to start a new life filled with fancy restaurants, cocktail parties and yachts.
But she also had a more sinister agenda...
Slim and attractive, with cropped blonde hair, Patricia knew that she could use her glamorous looks to her advantage.
So she set about finding elderly and lonely widowers to scam.
First, she signed up to a dating service. And she specifically requested matches aged over 55.
She also kept an eye on small ads and even approached elderly men in the street.
Posing as a successful businesswoman, she claimed to be the director of several companies, including a pizzeria, an art gallery and a jewellery shop.
Using sex, charm and her good looks, she lured older men into investing money in her bogus companies.
And she would sleep with them to keep her pockets full.
In early 2012, Patricia moved in with retired sailor Robert Vaux, 91, in the coastal town of Frejus.
Drawn to her flamboyant personality, Vaux later said that Patricia was ‘a ray of sunshine in winter’.
‘When you’re with a younger woman, you know that it won’t last, but you don’t deny yourself the moment unless you’re a masochist,’ he added.
But, shortly after meeting Patricia Dagorn, Vaux’s health declined rapidly.
He became lethargic, fatigued, easily confused.
Perhaps not that unusual for a man of advanced years.
But Vaux knew there was something amiss.
His doctor found vast quantities of diazepam – the anti-anxiety drug – in his system, and suggested he was being poisoned.
Had the old man’s beloved companion been pumping him with drugs to trick him into giving her money and adding her to his will?
Caught out, Dagorn quickly moved on to her next victim.
She contacted retired professor Robert Mazereau, 87, after spotting his ad on a dating site.
I am 50 years old, golden blonde, slim figure, she wrote.
Smitten, Mazereau invited her to move in almost instantly.
From day one, Dagorn plied her elderly lover with whisky.
She put huge quantities of mind-altering drugs in his food.
Taking advantage of his semi-conscious state, she made Mazereau sign documents transferring thousands of pounds to her in the event of his death.
Three days into the relationship, she tried to get him to sign papers giving her around £190,000. This time, Mazereau refused. There was a struggle, and the old man fell from his bed, badly injuring himself.
His daughter called the police when she couldn’t reach him on the phone and, by the
time he was found, half-naked, slipping in and out of consciousness, Dagorn had fled.
She was arrested, eventually jailed for five years for abducting Mazereau, administering diazepam and beating him.
But the French Riviera police began to dig into Patricia Dagorn’s trail of seductions.
And, among her belongings was a suitcase full of diazepam, methadone, ID cards, passports and various financial documents in the names of different elderly men.
This prompted detectives to revisit two cases from 2011.
Each involving the death of an elderly man...
Former building boss Francesco Filippone, 85, had been found dead in the bath at his home near Cannes, in February 2011.
When discovered, his body was badly decomposed.
Filippone had been treated for depression, so the discovery of diazepam in his system hadn’t aroused suspicion.
Yet, on the day of his death, a cheque for £19,000 had been cashed – by none other than Patricia Dagorn.
Four months later, Michel Knefel, 67, had been found dead in his hotel room in Nice.
A room that he’d shared with Patricia.
Diazepam had also been found in his blood and, although Dagorn had been questioned, at the time the police found no evidence that she was involved in his death.
But now, it appeared Dagorn hadn’t only been fleecing money from these vulnerable men in exchange for sex.
She’d been bumping them off, too.
Patricia Dagorn, 57, returned to court in Nice in January this year.
Only this time, she faced murder charges.
Robert Vaux gave evidence, as did a man named Ange Pisciotta, 82, another victim who came forward.
Pisciotta told the police Dagorn had stolen his computer and tried to take control of his savings.
The jury heard that Dagorn was a ‘perverted narcissist’ who preyed on lonely widowers to make herself rich.
The prosecutors claimed that she’d been ‘poisoning with premeditation’ after draining her victims’ fortunes.
While the French media dubbed her the Black Widow of the Riviera, Dagorn denied the charges.
But the evidence was stacked against her.
Dagorn was found guilty of murdering two elderly men, and poisoning two others.
She was jailed for 22 years.
In poisoning her elderly lovers for their money, it seems Patricia Dagorn’s greed had led her to poison her own soul.
The police began to dig into her trail of seductions