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NANTES, France, April 28 (AFP) – A 19-year-old youth went on trial in western France Wednesday, accused of stabbing a girl neighbour to death in imitation of a scene from the US horror film “Scream.”
The young man, named for legal reasons only as Julien, is accused of striking 15-year-old Alice Beaupere 42 times with a kitchen knife on open ground near their homes in the city of Nantes in June 2002. Alice identified him as the killer before she died.
Julien, who was 17 at the time, told investigators that he was obsessed with the “Scream” trilogy of films made by director Wes Craven, which show a series of bloody killings carried out among a group of friends on an American university campus.
Having decided to carry out a murder, he bought the white mask based on Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” which featured in the films, and unsuccessfully tried to contact two other neighbours before persuading Alice to meet him for a rendez-vous, according to the prosecution.
Psychiatrists who examined him after the crime said that Julien showed no sign of mental instability. He has spent the last two years in prison where he is preparing for his baccalaureat school-leaving examination.
The trial is taking place behind closed doors and a verdict is due on Friday. Julien faces a maximum sentence of life in jail.
© AFP
Subject: French news