Gardener who killed expat lover is jailed for 30 years
Victim, 58, was bludgeoned to death at village home in France
A FRENCH gardener was yesterday found guilty of murdering his expat British lover at her rural home in the South of France in 2012.
Jean-Louis Cayrou, 54, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the premeditated killing of Patricia Wilson whose body has never been found.
He was told he would serve at least 20 years.
Cayrou had survived a suicide attempt in custody in Rodez near Toulouse on Saturday, the day after telling his trial: ‘ By Monday, perhaps I’ll be in the morgue too.’
The court heard how Mrs Wilson, then 58, was last seen on the evening of August 17, 2012, when she was dropped off at her home in the village of Vabre-Tizac near Rodez in the Aveyron region.
Cayrou had told the Aveyron court the evidence against him ‘doesn’t weigh much more than the snow which falls on the mountains of the Auvergne’.
But prosecutors offered overwhelming evidence that he killed Mrs Wilson after she decided to end a brief relationship with him, and that he then disposed of her body. Alerted by neighbours five days after her disappearance, police found large quantities of Mrs Wilson’s blood around the property and in Cayrou’s car.
Mrs Wilson had just returned from a brief trip to England after splitting up with Cayrou whom she had employed to do odd jobs, mainly gardening. Detectives believe Cayrou was lying in wait and bludgeoned her to death.
Mrs Wilson, a retired advertising executive from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, had moved to France with her partner Donald Marcus in 2008.
He returned to Britain in 2011 for health reasons, leading the couple to separate, and she later had an affair with Cayrou.
Cayrou, who lived in a nearby town and had worked for a number of expats in the area since 2005, is said to have been badly affected by the split, according to prosecutors. Mrs Wilson had been bombarded with phone calls from Cayrou, the last at 8:57pm on the evening she disappeared.
Friends of Mrs Wilson said she had reported Cayrou acting violently towards her and attempting to suffocate her.
Fiona McKinley, 61, told the court that her friend Mrs Wilson was ini- tially happy with Cayrou, but he “turned into a jealous, possessive person, who wanted her to himself” and their relationship deteriorated.
Mrs Wilson died weeks after she told friends that Cayrou had broken into her house in the middle of the night, climbed onto her bed and attempted to suffocate her.
He was said to have told her: ‘I am doing this to show that you need a man in the house.’
Kieran Mitchell, a lawyer representing Mrs Wilson’s mother, Jean Wilson, described Cayrou as heartless.
He said: ‘This was a brutal mur- der of an innocent woman whose only mistake was to have a brief relationship with the wrong man.
‘Cayrou cruelly murdered her simply because she said she didn’t want to be with him.
‘Not content with cruelly taking her life, he disposed of her body so her family were unable to lay her to rest and then denied any part in the murder despite clear evidence of his guilt.
‘He has put Patricia’s mother Jean through an added ordeal of this criminal trial, showing how heartless and lacking in remorse he really is.
‘I am grateful to the French court that justice has finally been done.’
Jean Wilson, 84, said: ‘I’m pleased that justice has finally been done and that Mr Cayrou has been found guilty of this horrific crime.’
She added: ‘This verdict is tinged with sadness as I will always have to live without the daughter who I loved from the bottom of my heart.
‘When Patricia was so cruelly taken away from me I didn’t just lose a daughter, but my best friend, my confidante and the person I would turn to when I was low.
‘She was the perfect daughter and when she died it broke my heart. To lose a child is a devastating experience, but to lose a child in this manner, through an act of extreme violence is indescribable.’