For years, the woman experienced hair loss, weight loss, and memory lapses, often seeming disoriented. Friends and family feared she had Alzheimer’s. However, in late 2020, after being summoned to a police station in southern France, she learned a much more horrifying truth.

Her husband of 50 years, Dominique Pelicot, had been dissolving sleeping pills in her food and drink to put her into a deep sleep before raping her. He also invited dozens of men to their home to film them raping her as well, in abuse that spanned nearly a decade.

This shocking case has brought the issue of drug-facilitated sexual crimes into the spotlight in France. The trial, which began on Monday in Avignon, sees 51 men facing charges for their roles in the rapes. The accused come from various social backgrounds, and the charges range from rape to repeated participation in these acts. The woman, now in her 70s, has since divorced Pelicot and changed her name.

The story came to light when Dominique was arrested in 2020 for attempting to film under women’s skirts in a supermarket. Police seized his devices, discovering over 20,000 photos and videos documenting the long-term abuse of his wife.

Dominique admitted his guilt, stating that he began drugging his wife to do things to her that she usually refused and later started inviting other men to join in. The accused men offer various defenses, with some claiming they believed they had the husband’s consent and others stating they thought the woman had consented to being drugged as part of a sexual fantasy. However, the woman had no memory of the rapes and will see the recordings of the attacks for the first time in court.

The case has raised concerns in the medical community, as the woman had visited gynecologists and neurologists for symptoms including hair loss and memory loss without receiving a correct diagnosis. The revelations have also sparked discussions in France about revising rape laws to clarify that sexual acts without consent constitute rape, and that consent cannot exist when someone is in an altered state of consciousness.

Dominique Pelicot faces up to 20 years in prison and is also under investigation for involvement in other crimes, including rape and murder.

Additional Murder Charges

Dominique Pelicot is also suspected of the rape and murder of Sophie Narme, a 23-year-old real estate agent whose dismembered body was found in an apartment in Paris’s 19th arrondissement in December 1991. Investigators suspect Pelicot arranged to meet Narme at the apartment under the alias “Mr. Duboste.”

A colleague of Narme recalled meeting a man using the name Duboste who matched Dominique Pelicot’s description. Pelicot denies any involvement in the case.

Another real estate agent, a 19-year-old identified only as “E,” was attacked under similar circumstances by Pelicot in an apartment in the Paris suburb of Villeparisis in 1999, but she managed to escape after resisting, according to police. Blood found at the scene was later matched to Pelicot’s DNA in August 2022.

Dominique Pelicot worked in the real estate industry throughout the 1990s, and a police profile compiled from witness testimonies is said to “closely resemble” Duboste and the man who attacked “E,” according to an investigation source.

On September 7, 2022, Dominique Pelicot appeared before a judge in Nanterre, where he was charged with the murder of Sophie Narme and the attempted rape of “E.”