79‑Year‑Old Faces Trial in 31‑Year‑Old Murder Mystery

Tue Jun 16 2026 17:06:41 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Marie‑Thérèse Garcia is on trial in Versailles for the 1995 murder of her sister‑in‑law, a cold case solved 31 years later with DNA evidence.

Marie‑Thérèse Garcia, 79, is on trial in Versailles for the kidnapping and murder of her former sister‑in‑law, a case that shocked France in 1995. The victim’s dismembered body was found in a river‑borne trunk and identified two years later. Advances in DNA testing finally linked the defendant’s hair to the crime scene. Prosecutors argue Garcia lured the victim to a murder‑shaped plot involving the drug‑trade circles of the 1980s. Garcia maintains her innocence and calls the case built on flimsy evidence. The trial highlights the intersection of age, crime, and genetics in modern justice.

Marie‑Thérèse Garcia, 79, is on trial in the court of Versailles for the kidnapping and murder of her former sister‑in‑law, Corinne Di Dio.

Di Dio disappeared in June 1995 at 37. Two days later a metal trunk chained in the River Seine was found; inside lay a dismembered body missing head and hands, later identified in 1997 as Di Dio’s.

After almost three decades, DNA technology finally linked a hair found in the trunk to either Garcia or a relative, giving police the breakthrough needed to reopen the cold case.

Garcia was jailed in 2023 while awaiting trial, and repeated requests for conditional release on age and health grounds have been denied.

She is accused of luring Di Dio to a home near Rambouillet where she allegedly was stabbed, dismembered, and her body left in a river‑borne trunk.

Prosecutors say the motive was a pact with authorised drug‑dealer Antonio Marquez‑Gomez to remove their child, Romain, from his mother’s care and that Garcia’s alleged grudge stemmed from Di Dio’s affair with Marquez‑Gomez’s brother, Francisco.

The defense argues that the method of killing—no hands, no head—is atypical for a 79‑year‑old woman with no criminal record, and that the case is built on circumstantial evidence.

Other evidence expected at trial includes testimony from Garcia’s daughter, Nancy, who heard her mother talk about murder before the disappearance, and the chilling phone call in 2022 where Garcia threatened to “cut them up and put the pieces in a suitcase.”