Woman manages to escape after ‘five years locked in a garage by French couple who forced her to sleep in a deckchair, eat detergent-laced porridge and wash with bleach’

The woman, who claimed that a French couple forced her to wash herself with bleach and locked her in the garage, managed to escape after five years in captivity.

The 45-year-old man was allegedly detained in the commune of Saint-Molf, north of Guerande, by an 82-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman on charges of ‘kidnapping by torture or kidnapping with acts of barbarity’.

The victim, who claimed that he had to live in the garden, in the small locked garage next to the house, escaped this distress by running to his neighbor’s house at around 21.30 on October 14.

“He was mostly naked, came and knocked on the window” and had been “held captive” for nearly five years, Nantes prosecutor Antoine Leroy said on Wednesday.

The woman reportedly lived in a shared flat with another woman. Accordingly FranceBleuher roommate was a nursing assistant at Guerande hospital, where she met the old man and brought him home.

The pair then quickly locked up the woman, embezzled her money, social security benefits and emptied her bank accounts, according to the French news outlet.

Shortly after the ordeal began, Leroy continued, he was ‘asked to leave the house and live in the yard, outside, in a tent or in a garage attached to the house.’

He described how the alleged victim was sleeping on a sun lounger in ‘extremely precarious conditions’ and being forced to relieve himself on a bedpan or plastic bags. Leroy added that he even had to eat porridge mixed with dishwashing liquid and wash himself with bleach.

The woman was reportedly left outside in the rain and cold for days when her alleged kidnappers allowed her to leave the garage, leaving no trace of her life since her divorce in 2022.

“Bank accounts showed a sudden change in lifestyle; no activity has been seen since; recent bank transactions related to transfers into the defendant’s account,” Leroy explained.

However, on October 14, he finally managed to escape from his nightmare.

According to the prosecutor, the man took advantage of a free moment while watching television and left the garage without her hearing or seeing him.

When he arrived at the neighbor’s house, the police were called. There they discovered the thin woman, who had lost nearly 50 pounds and was suffering from hypothermia.

“He was washed with bleach, he had dishwashing liquid in his food, he was drugged,” Leroy said.

During searches of the house where the ordeal took place, investigators found evidence supporting the victim’s statement, such as ‘the garage door… was blocked from the outside with concrete blocks.’

Leroy explained that the investigation into the case was continuing, but that in the interview held under police supervision, the couple “confirmed the material conditions in which the victim lived in their home, while at the same time minimizing their share of responsibility.”

The Nantes prosecutor’s office referred the investigating judge to “crimes of kidnapping with acts of torture or barbarity committed from April 2022 to October 14, 2025” as well as “crimes of fraudulent exploitation of the situation to which a person is psychologically or physically exposed from 2019 to October 14, 2025 and crimes of fraudulent exploitation of the vulnerability of a defenseless person from 2018 to October 2018.” 16, 2025′.

The duo, who were detained at the end of last week, were later tried for the crime of ‘kidnapping by torture or barbaric act’, which is punishable by life imprisonment.

They were also reportedly accused of ‘fraudulent exploitation’, such as ‘putting a person under psychological or physical pressure’ and ‘weakness of a defenseless person’.

While the man was taken under judicial control, the woman he lived with was arrested.