Jean-Thierry Mathurin stood alone before the Paris cour d'assises in December 1991 to answer for killings carried out in the autumn of 1984. Elderly women had been killed in the 18th arrondissement and neighboring districts of Paris over about five weeks, between October 5 and November 12, 1984. The man the investigators believed to have led those attacks, Thierry Paulin, could not be tried: he died in April 1989, awaiting trial. That left Mathurin as the only defendant to stand trial over the 1984 killings. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with an 18-year security period.
The conviction covers a short and separate part of the larger series that the Paulin case is remembered for. Paulin was later charged with 18 killings and confessed to 21; Mathurin was not tried for any of the later ones. The outline of his case is consistent: two young men, a partnership that began in a Paris nightclub in 1984, a run of killings in October and November of that year, a verdict in December 1991, and a release reported for the end of the 2000s or the years after.
Le JDD reported in January 2009 that Mathurin was then 44 and had been born in French Guiana in December 1965. The newspaper described a childhood marked by poverty and violence. His father was violent. His lawyer, Michèle Arnold, later summed up the years before 1984 as eighteen years of poverty and hard living.
In 1984 he was 18 or 19; reports give both ages. Le JDD places him at the Paradis Latin, a cabaret in Paris, where Paulin also worked, and Paris ZigZag, a Paris history and culture magazine, wrote that it was there that Paulin met Mathurin. Le JDD and the Argentine daily Diario UNO both say the two became close and then committed the crimes together.
Paulin was born in November 1963 in Fort-de-France, Martinique, according to Diario UNO, and had moved to the Paris area in 1984. The newspaper reports that he had robbed an elderly woman in 1982 and received a two-year suspended sentence in 1983, and that he worked as a waiter at the Paradis Latin. None of this was part of Mathurin's trial.
Accounts agree on the role the money played. Paris ZigZag wrote that the two began killing elderly women in the 18th arrondissement to take money and jewelry, and that they spent what they took on nightclubs and parties. Le JDD said the cost of their nights out led to the attacks on elderly women that autumn.
The first attacks came on October 5, 1984. Planet, a French magazine, reports that an 83-year-old widow named Anna died that day in the 9th arrondissement. Diario UNO gives her full name as Anna Barbier-Ponthus. A second woman, 91, was attacked on the same day and survived. Both reports say she was too shaken to describe the people who had attacked her.
Over the following weeks more elderly women were killed, mostly in the 18th arrondissement. Le Bon Bon, a Paris city magazine, gives the span as October 5 to November 12, 1984, and counts eight women killed in the period. Planet gives the same dates and speaks of eight further elderly women attacked and killed in the 18th arrondissement besides the first victim. Diario UNO says investigators concluded that robbery was the motive.
Accounts differ on how many deaths Mathurin was convicted of. Le JDD says seven elderly people were killed and that there was an attempt on one more. Planet says he was alleged to have taken part in eight murders alongside Paulin. Diario UNO says he was tried for the first nine attacks and killings.
Apart from the first victim, the women who died have not been named publicly, and little is known of their lives.
Mathurin's name does not appear in the later killings. Le JDD wrote that after the two men parted in late 1984, Paulin went on attacking elderly women, while nothing linked Mathurin to any further crime. Diario UNO also dates the break to late November 1984, after a stay in Toulouse. Paris ZigZag and Le Bon Bon place the separation in 1985, so accounts differ by a few months; no precise date has been reported.
Paulin was later charged with 18 killings in total, and Diario UNO dates the second series to December 20, 1985 to June 14, 1986 and then to November 1987. Those killings were attributed to him alone. They were never the subject of a trial, because he died first, and Mathurin was not charged with them.
On December 1, 1987, Paulin was arrested by Commissaire Francis Jacob, who recognized him from a description given by a woman who had survived an attack in November 1987, according to Diario UNO. Planet says he was placed under formal investigation for 18 murders and that, once cornered, he also denounced his accomplice. Paris ZigZag says he confessed to 21 murders.
The date of Mathurin's arrest and of the start of the case against him have not been reported, and little is known of how the 1984 killings were investigated.
Paulin did not live to be tried. Planet records his death from illness on April 16, 1989, and Diario UNO places it in the prison hospital at Fresnes. Because of his death no court ever returned a verdict on his own killings; they remain attributed to him by the investigation and by his confession.
Planet wrote that Mathurin appeared alone before the cour d'assises of Paris in December 1991, because his partner was dead.
Le JDD reported, in its 2009 article, that the defense argued Mathurin had been dominated by Paulin and was not dangerous without him. His lawyer, Michèle Arnold, said that without Paulin he had not been dangerous and that without Paulin he no longer was. The newspaper summarized the defense as presenting Paulin as the master and Mathurin as his subordinate, and said that the prosecution had implicitly accepted that Paulin was the principal author of the killings. No account of the witnesses or of the length of the trial has been reported.
The cour d'assises convicted Mathurin in December 1991. Le JDD gives the finding as the murder of seven elderly people and an attempt on another. Planet gives the sentence in these words: "réclusion criminelle à perpétuité assortie d'une peine de sûreté de 18 ans". Le JDD also gives life imprisonment with an 18-year security period, and Diario UNO gives life with 18 years before any possible parole. Le Bon Bon says only that he was sentenced to life in 1991.
No appeal against the verdict was reported. Nothing has been reported of the deliberations or of any statement by relatives of the dead.
Le JDD wrote on January 25, 2009 that Mathurin had by then served 22 years, about half his life, and was described as a prisoner "sans histoires". He had made his first request for conditional release in October 2007. Two years later, a juge d'application des peines in the Yvelines signed an order, dated January 9, 2009, granting him semi-liberty for one year.
Under that regime he was to leave the Poissy detention center on the Monday and travel to a mid-sized provincial town, where a reintegration association would receive him. He was to start work the next day, sorting and collecting household items at a small company that recycles electrical and electronic waste, and return to prison each evening. If the year went well, he could be placed outside the prison.
The later reports differ. Planet says he was released in 2009. Le Bon Bon says he was released in 2012. Diario UNO says he was held until January 2009. The January 2009 order is the last step known in any detail. Accounts differ on the date of his final release, and no conditions attached to it, and nothing of his life afterward, have been reported.
The number of killings in the conviction. Le JDD: seven killed and one attempt. Planet: eight murders in which he was alleged to have taken part. Diario UNO: nine attacks and killings.
His age in 1984. Le Bon Bon gives 18; Diario UNO gives 19.
When the partnership ended. Late 1984 (Le JDD, Diario UNO) or 1985 (Paris ZigZag, Le Bon Bon).
The date of release. 2009 (Planet) or 2012 (Le Bon Bon). The only firmly dated step is the January 2009 semi-liberty order.
Paulin's killings. Paulin confessed to 21 killings and was charged with 18, but he died before trial. They are attributed to him, not proved in court. Mathurin was convicted only of the autumn 1984 killings and the attempt.
December 1965: Jean-Thierry Mathurin is born in French Guiana (Le JDD, 2009).
1984: he works at the Paradis Latin in Paris, where he meets Thierry Paulin.
October 5, 1984: first attacks in Paris; an 83-year-old woman dies and a 91-year-old woman survives.
October 5 to November 12, 1984: further elderly women are killed, mostly in the 18th arrondissement.
Late 1984 or 1985: Mathurin and Paulin separate.
December 20, 1985 to June 14, 1986 and November 1987: further killings attributed to Paulin alone.
December 1, 1987: Paulin is arrested; he names his accomplice.
April 16, 1989: Paulin dies before trial.
December 1991: Mathurin is tried alone and convicted by the Paris cour d'assises; life imprisonment with an 18-year security period.
October 2007: first request for conditional release.
January 9, 2009: order granting one year of semi-liberty from Poissy.
2009 or 2012: release, according to differing reports.