The fire at 4 rue Myrha claimed the lives of 8 people -
NORMAN GRANDJEAN / AFP
On September 2, 2015, the fire at 4, rue Myrha claimed the lives of eight people, including two children.
Since Monday, Thibaud Garagnon, a former tenant of the building has been tried by the Assize Court.
He recognizes the facts but "accuses" his different personalities.
At the Assize Court of Paris,
To hear him, this Thursday, in front of the Assize Court of Paris, we sometimes have the impression of hearing the testimony of one of the victims.
"Even if I caused the fire, I also lived it, I did not imagine the proportions that it was going to take", insists, in the box of the accused, Thibaud Garagnon, 24 years old, long hair tied in tail -horse, light overweight and colorful T-shirt with childish pattern.
On September 2, 2015, he deliberately set fire to his building in rue Myrha, in the heart of the Goutte d'Or, in the middle of the night.
The fire spread in less than 10 minutes to the five floors of the building, killing eight people, including two children.
“Around 4:20 am, I woke up with this urge to destroy something,” he explains in a monotonous voice.
According to his story, he rushes down the two floors to the ground floor, a lighter in his hand, then sets fire to the first object he sees: a stroller hanging from the banister.
"I didn't really see any flames, maybe a flame, I went back to bed thinking to myself that it was completely stupid what I had just done.
".
According to him, he dozed off thinking the fire was out, until he was bothered by the smoke.
Yet he was the first, less than 20 minutes later, to call the fire department.
The flames rushed into the stairwell at such a speed, that at 4:41 am, two inhabitants of the 5th floor, trapped, defenestrated before his eyes.
He manages to descend along the gutter.
A first fire two hours earlier
The man says he was overwhelmed by his gesture, never wanted to hurt his neighbors.
Two hours earlier, however, around 2:30 a.m., Thibaud Garagnon had already contacted the firefighters and the police after having himself set his mailbox on fire.
"I was in a period of deeper and deeper distress, I needed to alert", he explains, explaining that he was then in the grip of a deep depression, caused in particular by a Parisian life " too agitated ”in her eyes and“ work problems ”.
“If the emergency services or the psychologists had helped me more, it would not have happened,” he insists.
The president ticks: is it therefore the fault of the medical profession?
And why, if he was as bad as he claims, didn't he go find the fire department when they came over for the mailbox fire instead of staying at home?
Thibaud Garagnon becomes confused, evokes his "confusion" and "the alteration" of his faculties that night.
However, the analysis of his computer gives a completely different version.
After the first fire, the young man "chats" for a long time with a friend, confides to him that he is convinced that his upstairs neighbor is at the origin of this fire.
In front of the police, he again calls into question his neighborhood with whom relations have been complicated since moving into the building four months earlier.
Could the fire originate in a neighborhood dispute?
Assures him that not and justifies his comments on the Internet by a certain carelessness on the networks.
The accused and his various personalities
Unlike the previous days, Thibaud Garagnon did not spontaneously evoke his different personalities - “Superbia” the angry, “Baby fox” his childish self, “Light”, his comforting double - to explain his gesture.
At the request of several lawyers, he nevertheless specifies that these “characters” that he has been highlighting since the end of the investigation are an integral part of him.
"When I say that it was me who set the fire, even if it was Superbia, Superbia, it is me", he begins, before ensuring that the latter was "annoyed" by the fire, "it is very difficult for her, as for me or for the families of the victims".
None of the experts concluded that his consciousness had been altered, even partial, one of them speaking of an “opportunistic and guilt-free use” of these characters.
He faces life imprisonment.
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