A 25-year-old man was convicted of the murder of a gay septuagenarian he had met on the Coco site.
He claimed to want to “rid the world of a disgusting pedophile”. The Assize Court of Bouches-du-Rhône condemned, this Thursday, March 5, a 25-year-old man to twenty-five years of criminal imprisonment for the 2023 murder of a 70-year-old man in Marseille. The jurors also ordered a five-year socio-judicial supervision after his release, “the danger posed by the young defendant dominated the proceedings”. The public prosecutor had requested thirty years of imprisonment, on the grounds of “risk of reoffending”.
The victim, a gay septuagenarian, had met his killer in August 2023, when the killer was 18, via the Coco anonymous chat site, shut down the following year by the authorities. They had paid for sex. Three days later, the young man returned to the victim’s home with his younger brother, aged 14. According to the investigation, the two teenagers immediately struck the man with multiple knife blows before slitting his throat in his bathtub. A forensic pathologist mentioned at the trial a “near-beheading”. The two brothers then left with the victim’s phone, the keys to his apartment, and the money. Despite these elements, the prosecution ruled out the hypothesis of a primarily criminal motive.
A virilist environment
The younger brother was tried separately in May 2025. The specialized juvenile chamber of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal sentenced him to 15 years of criminal imprisonment, applying the minority defense. In front of the Assize Court, the elder brother’s trial focused on the crime’s motive. For the public prosecutor, the accused had undertaken the mission of punishing a man he suspected of pedophilia.
During the hearing, the public prosecutor emphasized that the accused “claimed his act” and “presented himself as a kind of vigilante against the decadence of society”. He took the opportunity to remind that “justice is served in courtrooms”. The investigation had already revealed several alarming statements, notably when the man, now 25, spoke of his “desire to see what it felt like to take a life”. During his schooling, several teachers had reported his pronounced interest in weapons, a passion passed down from his father, as well as drawings depicting beheading scenes, elements discussed at the trial to illuminate his personality.
