Plot twist in murder case of French teacher (51) who was stabbed to death “by burglars”: wife admits that she killed him | Abroad

The facts took place on Monday morning between 4 and 5 am in the couple’s home in the municipality of Rosendael, near Dunkirk. 37-year-old Justine Jotham called the emergency services in a panic. On the phone she said she had been woken up by a noise. She claimed that there were burglars in her home, but that she was able to flee with her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Her husband Patrice was still in the house, it was said.

When police and emergency services arrived on the scene, they found 51-year-old Patrice – who was a lecturer in Dutch and German at the Université Littoral-Côte d’Opale in Dunkirk – dead with a dozen stab wounds in his chest and abdomen. The fifty-year-old had suffered cardiac arrest due to the stab wounds and could no longer be resuscitated. There was no trace of the so-called “burglars”.

Near the house, investigators found two bloody knives, a pair of gloves, a flashlight and a laptop. A possible avenue was that the burglars had left those items behind when they fled. But the case took an unexpected turn when Jotham was taken into custody on Wednesday. Although prosecutor Charlotte Huet emphasized that “everyone taken into custody was considered innocent”, this now appears not to be the case.

After all, the collected evidence quickly pointed to Charlemagne’s wife. For example, Jotham had a cut on her left hand and a piece of fabric was missing from one of the gloves in exactly the same place. In addition, an analysis of the couple’s smartphones revealed “tensions” between the two, a source close to the investigation revealed.

Confronted with the evidence, Jotham admitted during her questioning on Thursday that Patrice had not been murdered by burglars, but that she had killed her husband herself. The public prosecutor’s office now announces that Jotham will remain in custody longer and that she will be questioned further.

37-year-old Justine Jotham, like her husband, works as a teacher at the Université du Littoral-Côte. She is also a municipal councilor and has written several children’s books. “We are all shocked,” Guillaume Vittu, chief of staff of Patrice Vergriete, the mayor of Dunkirk, responded to the confession.