SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

France’s ‘Black Widow’ on trial for murder

A woman dubbed the "Black Widow" of the French Alps goes on trial Monday for the murder of her husband, a case with troubling echoes of how four of her previous partners were poisoned, two of them fatally.

France's 'Black Widow' on trial for murder
A black widow spider. Photo: Wikimedia

Manuela Gonzalez, 53, is accused of the 2008 murder of Daniel Cano, a 58-year-old metal worker whose charred remains were found in the back of his burnt-out car near the house he shared with her in Villard-Bonnot in the Isère region of the Alps.

Police quickly established that the fire had been started deliberately, that Cano had consumed sleeping pills and that there had been tensions between the couple, both of whom were keen gamblers.

It subsequently emerged that Gonzalez had, without consulting her husband, re-mortgaged their house for €165,000 ($229,000), and that, a month before his death, there had been a fire in Cano's bedroom while he was sleeping alone.

The blaze was blamed on the family dog knocking over a candle but the couple's son testified to prosecutors that he had heard his father say, during an argument several days after the incident, "Manuela, don't take me for an idiot, there was no candle in my room."

As they looked into Gonzalez's past, investigators discovered that four of her previous partners had been poisoned in suspicious circumstances, two of whom died.

In 1983, her then husband spent three months in hospital having absorbed large quantities of anti-depressants.

A year later, a jeweller with whom she had begun a relationship was hopitalized after drinking tea she had laced with morphine derivatives as part of a plot to persuade him to write her a cheque for the equivalent of €12,000. That episode resulted in a conviction and a two-year prison sentence.

In April 1989, another lover died in his garage as a result of what was declared a suicide caused by asphyxiation from exhaust fumes from his car.

Another partner died in 1991 as a result of fumes caused by a fire at a flat they shared. Gonzalez was accused of causing the death but the charges were dropped three years later.

"What is astonishing is that she has slipped through so many nets for such a long time," said Francois Leclerc, the lawyer representing the brother and sister of Daniel Cano.

Leclerc said Gonzalez's past would be a key element in the prosecution case as, he argued, it reflected her modus operandi.

Gonzalez's lawyer, Ronald Gallo, argued that the previous cases were not relevant.

"Either they cannot be considered on statute of limitations grounds or they have already been judged," he said.

"From the beginning, the police have convicted her on the basis of her past. There is no proof, not even a single indirect witness."

The case is also expected to focus on whether Gonzalez, who is of Spanish heritage, suffered from a split personality and whether financial problems related to her gambling may have been a motive for her alleged murder.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

French authorities have uncovered a website for a fake recruitment drive purportedly seeking French volunteers to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without elaborating.

The site had said that 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine”, with immigrants given priority.

A link to the site – that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal – had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defence ministry said.

“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign”.

The ministry did not say who they thought might be responsible. But a source close to the government told AFP initial evidence pointed to communications operations linked to Russian mercenary group Wagner.

“The accounts used and the technical data behind them, these are the people we know”, the source said.

“These people are still there and remain very focused on Ukraine. The subject of the French army is something that annoys them a lot.”

Separately, a government official speaking on condition of anonymity said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine”.

French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks he has refused to rule out sending ground troops and insisted that Europe has to do all that is necessary for a Russian defeat.

France has already accused Russia of waging a disinformation campaign against it.

The official told AFP that similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving towards the Ukrainian border.

The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.

The defence ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.

The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilisation campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“Russia is asserting itself as the most aggressive player in the information field,” Marc-Antoine Brillant, the head of Viginum, an agency mandated to detect digital disinformation campaigns, said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro.

SHOW COMMENTS