French engineer sentenced to life in prison for killing three women over job losses
An unemployed French engineer who shot dead three women whom he blamed for his joblessness was given a life sentence on Wednesday for the murders.
In 2021, Gabriel Fortin, 48, killed two human resources directors and a jobcentre employee, and attempted to kill a company executive following a string of dismissals.
A jury at a court in the city of Valence found him guilty of murder and attempted murder and recommended that he serve a minimum sentence of 22 years, the maximum punishment possible for his crimes.
During the two-week trial, Fortin spoke little, but claimed he had been a victim of spying as well as conspiracies that led to him being dismissed from jobs between 2006 and 2009.
His lawyers claimed that he was highly isolated and suffering from personality disorders, suggesting he was mentally unfit to stand trial.
But prosecutors explained how computer records showed that he had meticulously researched and plotted the bloody January 2021 attacks, which took place on two separate days.
“He’s methodical, organised, adaptable, but he’s not mad,” chief prosecutor Laurent de Caigny said as he summed up on Wednesday.
The victims were targeted at their workplaces or homes and were associated with his being fired or his inability to find another job.
One victim was HR manager and mother-of-two Estelle Luce, who was fatally shot in the car park of her company in the Haut-Rhin region of eastern France on January 26 2021. Bertrand Meichel, an executive who had been involved in firing Fortin, was shot and wounded the same day at his home.
Two days later, Fortin gunned down Patricia Pasquion, an executive at a Pole Emploi employment agency in Valence, and Geraldine Caclin, the head of human resources at the firm Faun Environment.
France’s then prime minister, Jean Castex, said at the time that the killings had put “the whole country into mourning”.
Fortin’s mother took the stand during the trial, describing her son as having been a “thoughtful” child who grew up without a father, before bursting into tears upon seeing him behind the glass screen.