A 33-year-old France woman, Emilie G, has been sentenced to 15years jail term for killing her bedridden grandfather by setting fire to his mattress, after appealing a previous sentence they deemed too lenient.
The judgment came days after the accused confessed to killing her grandfather, describing the act as “an act of love” intended to end his suffering.
The prosecutors, however, appealed the sentence handed to her client, arguing that Emilie G. killed the 95-year-old out of mounting personal frustrations.
“This was not an act of love, he did not die peacefully,” Mazaud said during the appeal hearing at the Ain Assize Court in the eastern town of Bourg-en-Bresse, France.
According to the judge, when you love someone, you don’t set them on fire; rather, you care for them until they die.
In August 2020, the 95-year-old grandfather was found dead, partially charred and asphyxiated, in his medical bed at the home of one of his daughters in Saint-Laurent-de-Mure, located in the Rhône region, where he had been staying.
Two months later, the granddaughter was arrested and later confessed to setting fire to the bed, leading to the death of the grandfather.
However, during court proceedings, she claimed she “did not intend to burn him,” insisting that her actions were not meant to cause harm.
“He did not have a death worthy of his life; fire is atrocious, it is inhuman,” she explained in court.
During the initial trial, Emilie, who psychiatric experts described as suffering from depression, told the court she had been overwhelmed by the burden of caring for her ailing grandfather, while simultaneously raising her children and grappling with a deteriorating romantic relationship.
In a moment of emotional turmoil, she doused her grandfather’s mattress with gasoline, ignited a piece of paper, and threw it onto the bed before fleeing the room.
