Europe 1 with AFP 09:10, January 22, 2022

A 70-year-old woman was the victim of a cannibal attack by a man nicknamed the "cannibal of the Pyrenees" who escaped from the Gérard Marchant psychiatric hospital in Toulouse.

An investigation for attempted murder has been opened by the prosecution.

The septuagenarian suffers from several fractures.

The Toulouse prosecutor's office opened an investigation on Friday for "attempted murder" after the attack on a septuagenarian by a man nicknamed the "cannibal of the Pyrenees" who had fled from the psychiatric hospital where he is interned.

The victim, who was walking his dog in a residential area of ​​the Pink City around 10:00 p.m. Wednesday, "was hospitalized and suffered from broken arms and head wounds", informed Toulouse prosecutor Samuel Vuelta-Simon in a press release. .

It was a neighbor who, "hearing cries and seeing a man armed with a long stick hitting a woman on the ground", intervened to help her, specifies the same source.

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The suspect already known for acts of cannibalism

Arrested and then placed in police custody, the attacker, a 34-year-old man, was quickly taken back to the Gérard Marchant psychiatric hospital in Toulouse, from where he had escaped a few hours earlier, "a doctor noting that his health mental state was not compatible with police custody". 

The prosecution said it had opened an investigation for attempted murder "in order to continue the investigations and verify the responsibility of the author" at the time of the events.

This former soldier who served in Afghanistan had been indicted a few years ago for intentional homicide and acts of cannibalism committed in November 2013. The justice had declared him "totally irresponsible (...) because of his mental state “, specifies the parquet floor.