Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing well and that you got to go on vacation (because everybody deserves some rest). Today I’m going to tell you the story of a man who liked working and women…well, until he felt rejected. Without any further introduction, here’s the case of Didier Tallineau.
An angry child
Before becoming a murderous adult, Didier Tallineau was a child. A strange one.
Born on September 17th, 1965 in Niort, a city in western France, Didier is the only boy out of four children. His father is a truck driver, so he is very absent. His mother, on the other hand, is present and is sometimes very authoritarian, sometimes very affectionate with her only son, who will give her quite a hard time.
At 10, Didier starts to have angry outbursts. He breaks everything around him, including chairs. His behavior doesn’t get better as time goes on, and at 15, he creates a crime scene in his home, to the point where the gendarmes (a type of police) are called.
Didier continues to grow up, and seems to transfer a part of his chaotic energy into work. He wants to become the perfect worker. At 19, he does his military service, and a year later he enters the restaurant business as a seasonal worker. He starts working in Switzerland as an assistant cook in a hotel.
Catherine
At 26, he meets Catherine Charuau, a young waitress. He starts dating her, and the relationship gets serious enough for the couple to buy a house in Oulmes, a small town. Their life in that house isn’t at all peaceful, and their fights become a regular occurrence.
On the evening of August 7th, 1989, as Didier is coming home from work, the couple begins their last fight. Catherine announces that she wants to leave him, that she is bored (partly because she stopped working since they started living together), and that she has doubts regarding his fidelity. The fight gets more and more intense, and Didier hits her in the head. We will never know if that’s his only strike, but Catherine, 23, never gets up again.
If Didier panics, it doesn’t last long. He drags Catherine’s body to their garden, and buries her after pouring perfume on the body. The next day, he knocks on his neighbors doors, saying that Catherine has disappeared.
As time goes on, he adds to his story. Didier tells everyone who will listen that Catherine left him and took the checkbook, her passport and her stuffed animal collection. This story is believable, because Catherine has had that type of behavior before. However, she has never cut contact with her family, and this time, they haven’t heard from her.
When Catherine’s relatives ask him if he has heard from her, Didier tells them that she has left the region and has used her checkbook in August in the city of Bordeaux, apparently to buy a car. Almost everybody believes him at that time. Even Catherine’s father thinks that his daughter “hasn’t done things right”.
However, after a few months, Catherine’s mother has doubts, and regularly alerts the gendarmes. Sadly, they can’t do anything since Catherine is an adult.
Didier, on the other hand, lives his life wreaking havoc wherever he goes. In March 1992, he is partying with other assistant cooks, and one of them ends up knocked out in the bathroom in a pool of blood. Didier is never suspected because he doesn’t have a criminal record and is liked by everyone, notably because of his work ethic.
In August 1994, the hotel where Didier works burns twice, and is significantly damaged. The fires are clearly criminal, and Didier is suspected, but the evidence isn’t enough to arrest him. After that, he leaves Switzerland.
At the end of 1994, Catherine Charuau’s parents go to a lawyer, who ends up sending a request directly to the local prosecutor’s office. An investigation is started, but it will lead nowhere.
Christine
In the fall of 1994, as the investigation into Catherine’s disappearance is beginning, Didier decides to go to Serbia, probably because this country doesn’t extradite French nationals.
In December, he passes through Germany. In Düsseldorf, he knocks on the door of Christine Richter, a young German woman he met in Switzerland. The two had had a short fling that she had ended after a year.
Didier asks her to shelter him for a night because his car broke down. Christine hesitates but eventually accepts, making clear that he will only sleep in her place. The rest of the day passes by uneventfully, and Christine proposes a night out, but Didier strangely insists on washing the dishes.
Christine goes to the sink, and as she is washing the dishes, he hits her with a rolling pin. Christine falls to the ground, and Didier tells her that a bottle fell on her head. She asks him to call a doctor, but he tells her that it would be better to just go get some medicine. However, he conveniently doesn’t have a German credit card, so she gives him hers. Didier goes out, but instead of going to he pharmacy, he goes to an ATM and withdraws all the money. He comes back to Christine, who is lying down on her couch, saying that the card doesn’t work, so she gives him another one. Again, he goes to an ATM and withdraws a maximum of money. This time, he goes straight to his car (yes, the one that “broke down”) and leaves without even checking if Christine is still alive. Luckily, she manages to get to her phone and call a friend, who gets her to a hospital. She survives.
Carole
In 1998, Didier, who eventually came back to France, moves to the Loire-Atlantique region and moves in with his new wife. The same year, the couple has a child, and Didier becomes the owner of a bar called Le Louisiane, where he will make his last victim.
On the evening of July 19th, 1999, Didier is working in his bar when he sees Carole Le Yondre, a 19-year-old student nurse, coming in with her friends. According to a witness, the crew drinks heavily and even gets a little rowdy.
Around 3am, the friends leave, but Carole stays to help Didier wash the dishes. While they are alone, he tries to kiss her several times, but she rejects him each time. Didier gets mad and hits her with a pool cue, knocking her out. He drags her to the cellar, where he undresses her to “see her body”. When he sees that Carole is starting to wake up, he hits her with a beer keg. She doesn’t wake up after that. He hides the body at the back of the cellar, and leaves.
Carole disappeared is rapidly reported, and the searches start almost immediately. When Didier’s bar is searched the first time, the body has been there for 5 days, but isn’t found.
The next night, Didier decides to get rid of it. He puts it in the trunk of his car, and starts driving. He finds a ditch in which he can drop the body around 4am. However, as he is doing just that, another driver pulls up. As soon as he sees her, he gets back into his car and leaves, leaving a bloody trash bag behind. He ends up dropping the body a little farther before going home to his wife and son.
Carole’s body is found around 8:20am by a cyclist. As soon as it’s made public, the driver from the previous night goes back to the road where she saw Didier and finds the bloody trash bag. She immediately goes to the gendarmes to tell them what she saw and what she found. Most of all, she tells them that the man she saw was driving a red Renault Nevada. The investigators look for all the vehicles matching this description in the region, and soon find one parked right in front of the bar Le Louisiane.
The arrest and the confessions
Two days later, the investigators stake out the bar, and see Didier cleaning his car. After a brief moment, they decide to arrest him. They then discover in the car a putrefaction odor, that Didier had tried to hide with a lavender scent. They almost find blood spots. Didier is immediately brought to the station, as well as his wife and everyone who was at the bar the night Carole disappeared.
Once in the interrogation room, Didier starts by saying that Carole was indeed in the bar the night she disappeared, but that she left after doing the dishes. After that, he implicates some man named Karim, who according to him killed Carole while he was in the cellar. After Karim killed her, Didier covered for him, fearing for his establishment. Karim, who exists and is actually a known criminal, is immediately brought to the station, and naturally denies everything.
Didier changes his story three times, so the investigators quickly realize that he is lying. They press him, and he finally confesses to the murder of Carole. He tells them everything, so the investigators search his bar again. This time, they find traces of blood in the cellar, and a shoe and a bunch of keys in the false ceiling. After these findings, Didier offers drinks to the gendarmes, saying that it’s the last time he will have the chance to serve drinks. The gendarmes accept and engage in a conversation with him, during which he cries while talking about his son. A gendarme tells him, rightfully so, that it’s a bit late to think about that.
After those drinks, Didier is incarcerated in the Nantes prison.
As soon as this incarceration is made public, a retired gendarme who worked on the Catherine Charuau case calls up his former colleagues, the gendarmes working on the Carole Le Yondre case, and Catherine’s parents.
Catherine Charuau’s case is reopened in August 1999.
The new investigators soon discover that Catherine thought that Didier was cheating on her, and that the couple fought often. They also question Didier’s current wife, who says that she doesn’t know anything and lets them look through the apartment. The investigators soon find stuffed animals, which Catherine’s family immediately recognize as their loved one’s collection.
The gendarmes also examine Catherine’s bank account, which has been inactive since September 1989. Checks totaling 15,000 francs were made from this account, but the investigators discover that it’s Didier that used those checks, transferring some of the money to his own account, and using the rest to make purchases and make people believe that Catherine was still alive.
Having accumulated enough evidence, the investigators bring Didier back to the interrogation room.
Didier is calm at the beginning of the interrogation, but when he’s faced with his contradictions, he becomes aggressive. The investigators press him and end up talking about Catherine’s parents, who are still waiting for the truth. That’s when Didier starts crying and telling them that Catherine died by accident by falling and hitting her head after he slapped her. He says that without emotion, and explains where he buried her. The investigators go to Oulmes and dig up the body. After that, Didier is indicted for this murder.
The investigators continue to look into the rest of Didier’s life, and find out about the assault of the assistant cook, the fires and the attack on Christine. A video call is organized to confront her and Didier. During this call, he confesses to the assault, but when his victim asks why he did it, he has no answer.
As the investigation comes to an end, Didier is examined by experts who find no sign of a pathology that would have caused the murders, but still find some antisocial traits and a deep fear of separation.
The trials
On October 15th, 2001, the trial for the murder of Catherine Charuau and the attempted murder of Christine Richter. During this trial, Didier says that Catherine’s death was an accident, but the staging of her “disappearance” proves premeditation for the court. Christine is too traumatized to attend the trial.
In the end, Didier apologizes to Catherine’s family and asks for a lenient sentence because he has a son that he would like to see. He is sentenced to 20 to 30 years. Didier files an appeal, but the sentence is confirmed in May 2002.
In December 2002, the trial for Carole Le Yondre’s murder begins. This time, Didier claims that he found her body next to him after waking up in the cellar of his bar. Almost nobody takes him seriously. He is eventually sentenced again to 20 to 30 years, making him able to ask for parole in July 2019. However, things don’t end here.
The release
In 2003, Didier asks for an early release for medical reasons. Indeed, he has pleural cancer, and is quickly admitted into the prison hospital awaiting exams.
In October and November 2004, he is examined by medical experts, who conclude that his state is incompatible with detention. Didier then benefits from the Kouchner law, which came into effect on March 4th, 2002 and allows for the release of prisoners with life-threatening conditions or whose medical state is incompatible with detention. Didier’s release demand is validated on December 1st and he is freed into the care of his parents a week later. At this time, his life expectancy is estimated to be 6 to 12 months. The victim’s families, as the law requires, were only informed of this release.
Didier moves into his family’s house in Olonne-sur-Mer, near the victim’s families, and they, as well as the neighbors, are appalled. A petition is rapidly created to demand his re-incarceration. The killer who can’t handle rejection is getting rejected again.
In March 2005, Didier is reexamined by doctors, who determine that his medical state is still incompatible with detention. However, as the months pass, he gets better and a new petition is created. According to the neighbors “he works with his father, he drives his car, his speed is excessive…”.
The return to prison
In the summer of 2005, new experts examine Didier and determine that the Kouchner law doesn’t apply anymore. He is thus re-incarcerated in September.
A year goes by, and Didier goes downhill. He ends up being hospitalized at the prison hospital. By November 2006, he is dying, so his lawyer tries to make him benefit from the Kouchner law again. However, the procedure isn’t quick enough.
Didier dies at 41 during the night between December 5th and December 6th, 2006.
Since this case, the Kouchner law has been modified: the release of a prisoner can now be refused if the prisoner presents a risk of reoffending or a risk of causing public unrest.
That’s it for today ! Let me know what you think about this case on r/Murder_Wine_Cheese, on Tumblr (@mwacblog) or on Instagram (@mwacblog).
Go watch some cute animal videos, and I’ll see you with the next case !
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