The trial of Gabriel Fortin opened on Tuesday June 13 in Valence. This engineer is accused of three murders and attempted murder targeting human resources managers and an employee of Pôle Emploi in January 2021.
Finally answers after two and a half years of silence? This is what the relatives of the three women killed by Gabriel Fortin in January 2021 are waiting for. This man has remained silent since his arrest in the middle of the Frédéric-Mistral bridge in Valence which separates the Drôme and the Ardèche.
The accused delivered his first words during the trial! Invited to react following the indictments, Gabriel Fortin declared: “I would like to say that he has a lot of lies. These facts are invasions of my privacy (…) I have sent many complaints “, he stated in a voice “clear and firm” according to France 3.
Gabriel Fortin’s mother sees him again at trial after more than two years without any interaction
His mother, Francine Fortin, was then asked to testify. When the President of the Assize Court invited her to look at her son, she burst into tears then spoke to him: “Why didn’t you speak to me? Please answer the questions carefully. questions you are asked, try to tell them what happened. They need to mourn!” Gabriel Fortin refused to speak to him then after a new request, he asked to speak.
“I alerted the prosecutor of Valence, the prosecutor of Chartres (…) the CSM, do you know Mr. President? I alerted the defender of rights to my situation. I alerted the prosecutor of Valence, in red! Get up!”, lectured Gabriel Fortin before being called to order by the president. He continued by reading a paper: “The civil parties do not have to give instructions to the witnesses. The case is over.”
A long silence during the investigation and his pre-trial detention
Gabriel Fortin did not give all the keys to his acting out during the investigation. He has remained silent since his arrest, whether during interrogations, but also in front of the investigating judge. This 47-year-old man did not want to get out of the prison van during the reenactments.
“His journey seems to speak the same way”, according to Nicolas Estano, clinical psychologist, in the podcast “HRD killer” by journalist Marion Dubreuil. The indictment highlights a “cold and determined revenge of an intelligent man”.
Gabriel Fortin’s computer enlightened investigators
Another way of expressing oneself appears: writing. In his computer files, in writings found in his cell, the investigators learn much more about the suspect of the three assassinations and an assassination attempt. The last 15 years are thus traceable thanks to thousands of files. His notes enabled the police to observe that Gabriel Fortin had meticulously prepared his murderous journey: he went to the places of the assassinations several times, followed the careers of the HRDs who carried out his dismissals, he listed their license plates. ‘registration.
He regretted not getting enough headlines on one of his notebooks: “The media impact was lessened and covered up by other media affairs.” While searching his home, the police had found two alleged goodbye letters intended for his mother and brother. He had written them before starting his murderous journey on January 25, 2021. He “thanked them for these moments”. Two almost identical letters.
The childhood of Gabriel Fortin
His parents, Francine and Jean-Marie, met at Saint-Jérôme University in Marseille at the end of the 1960s. His father, Gabonese, went home when his wife was pregnant with Gabriel, he would never recognize his son. Gabriel Fortin was raised for a time by his uncles in Marseille. Jean-Marie also has other children in Gabon.
His mother then raised him in Nancy. She places her academic success above all else with physical sanctions in case of mistakes. At the age of 14, he was forced to stop rugby because of an injury, his only extra-curricular activity when he had few friends in college. He is then rather socially isolated. In 1999, he earned an engineering degree.
His brother, Olivier, describes him as “weird and asocial” to investigators. They regularly go several months without seeing each other. The transcriptions of their SMS reveal impersonal exchanges with short exchanges during birthdays or parties.
He did not respond to his mother shortly before his arrest
Francine Fortin confides that her son had left sobbing during their last meeting, she felt her son’s distress. She even sends him an SMS of concern on January 23, without response. According to Franceinfo, she confesses “to have found him depressed and felt ‘at the end'” a few days before the murders that his son is accused of having committed.
Behind bars, Gabriel Fortin writes a draft to break all contact with his mother, but he will never send this letter. He feels “a deep sense of injustice and tries to let others know with his writings” according to investigators.
The victims and several women had been spied on for years
The accused lived alone, his last known relationship, Maud, dates back to high school, a love affair of a few weeks. He tries twice to see her again, but after a tasteless lunch, the second attempt fails even though this woman has gotten married in the meantime. Maud would be “a hope of normality” for Gabriel Fortin according to Nicolas Estano. He can’t stand “being rejected and becomes obsessed with this woman. He paranoidly follows her on social media to the point of knowing the layout of her apartment, meal times and the children’s school are logged in his computer.”
The confinement would have accentuated his fixations: “He sends around sixty messages to a woman he met only a week almost 15 years before during a paragliding course”. He follows the actions of these people in a pathological way, just like the three murdered women. Maud seemed to be aiming for an assassination plan. According The world“on January 27, 2021, after shooting Estelle Luce and Bertrand Meichel in Alsace, and before reaching Drôme, Gabriel Fortin drove to Île-de-France. The gas station where he stopped was about ten kilometers from the building where Maud lived, in Nanterre. Luckily, she had moved a few months earlier.”
Two lawyers and the prosecutor of Valence were also in the eye of Gabriel Fortin. He had calculated the distance of the cabinets with the nearest police and gendarmerie stations and had even traveled to Valence to map the high court of Valence.