Sad family drama in Mulhouse.

A 26-year-old man and his 24-year-old sister, who wanted to punish their little brother for a "big mistake", finally killed him.

They had been appearing since Monday before the Haut-Rhin Assize Court.

The latter pronounced on Wednesday prison sentences against three members of the family of Seal-Evan, who died at the age of nine under the blows of his brother and sister.

Tried "for willful violence against a 15-year-old minor resulting in death without the intention of giving it", the two main defendants were sentenced respectively to 15 years' imprisonment and six years' imprisonment.

The victim's mother, accused of "complicity in willful violence", was sentenced to four years in prison.

Finally, the court imposed a three-year suspended prison sentence on the older brother's ex-girlfriend, prosecuted for "non-impediment of a crime".

These sentences are in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution, except for that of the big brother: the general counsel, Laura Duc, had requested fourteen years of imprisonment against him, evoking the "tremendous rage" of the eldest, "sounding board of his education ".

The latter was the only one to appear detained, the three accused women being under judicial supervision.

A warrant of committal is attached to each prison sentence.

First the belt, then the broomstick

The facts date back to Sunday, September 16, 2018, in the apartment of this family of Cameroonian origin, in Mulhouse.

The siblings are on their own: the mother, as often, is absent.

Present are the two eldest and their two little brothers (Seal-Evan, the youngest, and his 11-year-old brother) as well as the oldest companion, who is pregnant.

At the end of the afternoon, on the pretext of a note in Seal-Evan's correspondence book, blows began to rain down, first with a belt, then a broomstick.

The correction session will last until midnight.

The sister partly filmed and recorded it.

In a recording broadcast Tuesday at the hearing, we hear the child implore “God, help me, God” and address his brother who hits him: “Protect me, you are the king”.

He ends up losing consciousness.

The sister alerts the emergency services, which will not be able to revive him when they arrive shortly after midnight.



The criminal nature of the death was not immediately established but "suspicious traces" on the body led the hospital to alert the police, had indicated the public prosecutor of Mulhouse, Edwige Roux-Morizot.

The autopsy and further examinations showed that he was unconscious, even in a coma, probably several hours before the call for help.

"A stubbornness"

He "would have died of suffocation by his own gastric contents", "while he was unconscious", according to the prosecutor.

The blows were not in themselves fatal "but it was indeed as a result of these blows that the child died", she added.

So many elements that had led to the arrest of the four relatives of Seal-Evan, struck by his two eldest "in the presence of his sister-in-law, and with a more distant presence of their own mother", according to the prosecutor.

Heard by the Assize Court on Tuesday, the two eldest partly acknowledged the facts, the young man denying having used a broomstick, yet attested to by his youngest brother.

The latter, heard behind closed doors as a minor, spoke of a "relentlessness" on Seal-Evan.

According to the teenager, in the family, belt shots were reserved for "big nonsense", sometimes linked to school homework: this Sunday, the word in the notebook, likely to draw attention to a family who had already suffered a social survey, served as a trigger.

The mother “in party mode”

For the eldest, it was his mother, then "in party mode" in Paris, who told him on the phone to "manage the thing".

According to him, his mother practiced physical punishment: “We grew up in a place where hitting is normal”.

His sister also admitted to hitting, but not on a "voluntary" basis.

As for the ex-girlfriend, she explained that she “reacted badly (…) Instead of calling for help, I stayed to watch my boyfriend hit his little brother”.

The mother disputed having asked the eldest to hit her youngest son, to the chagrin of the president of the court: “Nonsense!

“, launched Christine Schlumberger.

“You didn't want social services to control your family and therefore your income!

The reality is that you asked your son to type” Seal-Evan, the magistrate got carried away.

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