Trial Begins for France’s Oldest Detainee
Marie‑Thérèse Garcia, 79, has entered a courtroom in Versailles, near Paris, to confront charges of kidnapping and murder that have lingered since the disappearance of her former sister‑in‑law, Corinne Di Dio, in 1995.
Di Dio vanished in June of that year when she was 37. Two days later a metal trunk, chained and floating in the River Seine, was discovered. Inside lay a dismembered corpse—no head, no hands—eventually identified in 1997 as Di Dio’s through forensic examination. The missing body parts remain unlocated.
Garcia drew early suspicion: the case was closed twice because of insufficient evidence, but new DNA technology provided a breakthrough. Two hairs found inside the trunk matched either Garcia or a relative of hers, strengthening police arguments.
Since 2023, Garcia has been in prison awaiting trial, having repeatedly sought conditional release on health grounds, all denied. She has represented her innocence in interviews, claiming the case is built on “sand.”
The prosecution will present a narrative that Garcia lured Di Dio to her Rambouillet home, stabbed her in the sitting‑room, and dismembered her body to conceal the murder. They will argue a motive tied to a pact with Spanish drug trafficker Antonio Marquez‑Gomez to remove two young children from Di Dio’s care. The motive also involves personal injury due to Di Dio’s affair with Marquez‑Gomez’s brother, Francisco.
Interestingly, both Garcia and Di Dio were linked to an underworld of criminal associations. Their circle included notorious brothers Jean‑Jacques and Philippe Maurice, the latter once condemned to death in France before being granted clemency by President François Mitterrand.
During a three‑week trial, prosecutors plan to bring testimony from Garcia’s daughter, Nancy, who recalled hearing her mother speak about murder on the phone months before Di Dio’s disappearance. Police also note a strange coincidence from 2022 involving the disappearance of a young couple, one of whom was Garcia’s great‑niece.
"The hairs they found were brown, but back then everyone knows I had black hair," Garcia explained to Le Parisien.
Glowing outward, Garcia has described herself as generous toward friends yet relentless toward enemies, yet she insists the evidence against her is circumstantial. She asserts that there is no motive, no proof, and that the case “is all built on sand.”
