It was almost the perfect murder… Plasterer who killed his wife and hid her body finally learns his fate after shocking trial that divided France
A French plasterer was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing his wife and hiding her body.
The disappearance of Cédric Jubillar’s wife Delphine shook France during the Covid quarantine.
Although five years have passed since her disappearance, Delphine’s body has not been found.
Delphine, 33, disappeared on December 15, 2020. Jubillar called the police at 4 a.m., claiming that he went out to walk his dogs and never returned. However, no one saw him leave and there is no evidence to support this claim.
A massive manhunt ensued, with more than 1,000 people searching the vast countryside; Divers checked nearby rivers for any evidence of what had happened to the mother of three.
Jurors believe the 37-year-old man killed his wife in a rage because she planned to leave him for another man and then hid her body.
Jubillar was found guilty of murder at the end of a trial in the southern town of Albi
But the absence of any traces of blood or signs of the crime scene has made the case one of the most puzzling in modern French legal history, leading to much speculation about whether Jubillar was a murderer or the victim of overzealous investigators.
During the four-week trial, Jubillar’s defense claimed that the investigation was one-sided.
Cédric Jubillar was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of his wife Delphine
Delphine’s missing person poster. Although five years have passed since her disappearance, Delphine’s body has not been found
In her closing argument, her lawyer Emmanuelle Franck described the case as ‘a machine that will be crushed where bad faith meets incompetence’: Daily Telegraph reported.
He told jurors: ‘We created a criminal to explain a crime. This is a sand castle. When you can’t prove it, you imagine. When you can’t find it, you invent it.’
Ms Franck argued Jubillar was a man who could ‘barely organize his own toolbox’ and was expected to commit the ‘perfect crime’.
Prosecutors argued the case followed the classic pattern of domestic violence: jealousy, control, anger and then denial.
Chief Public Prosecutor Pierre Aurignac said: ‘In order to defend the opinion that Mr Jubillar is innocent, four experts must be dismissed, 19 witnesses must be silenced and the search dog must be killed.’
Prosecutors told the jury that although there was “no body and no blood,” there was “no reasonable alternative.”
‘No matter how you look at this case, you come to the same conclusion: guilt,’ Mr Aurignac said.
Damning evidence of Jubillar’s guilt came from the testimony of his relatives.
The damning evidence came from Jubillar’s mother, Nadine Jubillar, who told the court she regretted not taking her son seriously, saying: ‘I’m fed up, he’s making me angry, I’m going to kill him.’
In his final sentence in court, Jubillar said simply: ‘I did absolutely nothing to Delphine.’
His mother, Nadine, stated in court that she regretted not taking her son seriously and said, “I’m fed up, he’s bothering me, I’ll kill him, I’ll bury him, no one will find him.”
In a letter read aloud to the court by the couple’s son, Jibillar was accused of mistreating both his mother and himself.
He described being beaten, humiliated and humiliated, and said he believed his father had ‘done something bad’ to his mother.
The boy also revealed that he witnessed the couple arguing the night they disappeared and talking about their breakup.
After the verdict, Jubillar continued to claim his innocence.
In his last sentence in court, he said only this: ‘I did absolutely nothing to Delphine.’
The defense had already announced that it would appeal and insisted that ‘reasonable doubt remains overwhelming’.
The case has shaken France and reignited a nationwide debate about how police should respond to domestic violence and whether the justice system is equipped to handle cases of disappearances without a trace.
