Trial Begins for 79‑Year‑Old ‘Ma Dalton’ in 1995 Murder Case
The Versailles courthouse will see the old French criminal suspect, Marie‑Thérèse Garcia, take the stand this week for the murder of her former sister‑in‑law, Corinne Di Dio, a case that has haunted the country since 1995.
Garcia – 79 – has been the subject of police scrutiny ever since her former sister‑in‑law vanished in June 1995. Two days later, a metal trunk bound with a chain was found floating in the Seine, containing a dismembered corpse of a woman who was later identified as Di Dio. The head and hands were missing, and the body had never been recovered. Although initial investigations closed the case twice for lack of evidence, new advances in DNA technology have reopened the door for prosecution.
In 2023, prosecutors advanced the theory that Garcia lured Di Dio to her home near Rambouillet, where a stabbing led to the body’s dismemberment. The alleged motive was a pact between Garcia and her former lover Antonio Marquez‑Gómez – a known drug trafficker – to acquire Di Dio’s son, Romain, when he was ten. The oldest woman in the courtroom is also accused of harbouring a grievance against Di Dio for an affair with Marquez‑Gómez’s brother, Francisco.
The latest DNA breakthrough linked black hairs found in the trunk either to Garcia or to a woman in her matrilineal line. The factor that points to Garcia is that, at the time of the incident, she was naturally black-haired, while the hairs recovered were brown. The defence notes that the hair’s colour does not conclusively point to Garcia, and that the evidence remains circumstantial.
According to a recent interview with Le Parisien, Garcia insists she did not commit the crime and that “no one knows what happened, and if you do not know, you cannot convict.” Her lawyer, Najwa El Haïté, highlighted the abstract nature of the prosecution’s argument, describing the killing as “the method of organised crime” and not matching Garcia’s mere lack of a criminal record.
Witnesses include Garcia’s own daughter, Nancy, who told police in 2004 that she heard her mother speak on the phone about murdering Di Dio shortly before the disappearance. Prosecutors also refer to a cell phone tap, where Garcia announced that if she caught the culprits, she would “cut them up and put the pieces in a suitcase.” The trial will also examine how a young boy, Romain, later claimed in Le Parisien that after the disappearance he was taken to Spain by his father, who at that time was living in Madrid with a new family.
The case exemplifies how cold crimes can be revived when forensic science catches up with the evidence. Garcia’s trial will include testimony from experts for both sides and will test whether the DNA and witness accounts are sufficient to indict a suspect who denies any involvement in the murder.
