David, the oldest child, said they no longer have family photos because they “got rid of everything related to my dad right there.” After a few days, Giselle’s life was reduced to a suitcase and her dog.
Meanwhile, Dominic confessed to his crimes and was officially arrested. He thanked the police for “taking the burden off him.”
He and Giselle did not meet again until they sat opposite each other in a courtroom in Avignon in September 2024.
By then, the story of a husband who drugged his wife for ten years and invited strangers to rape her began to circulate around the world with the help of Gisele’s unusual and excellent decision to give up anonymity and open the court to the public and the media.
“I want any woman who wakes up one morning with no memory of last night to remember what I said,” she declared. “So that no other woman could become a victim of chemical subjugation. I have been sacrificed on the altar of vice, and we must talk about it.’
Her legal team also successfully pushed for the videos to be shown in court, arguing that they “nullify the accidental rape thesis” – pushing back against the defense’s line that the men did not intend to rape Giselle because they had no idea she was unconscious.
“She wanted the shame to change sides, and it happened,” a woman who came to watch the trial in Avignon said in November. “Giselle turned everything upside down. We did not expect such a woman.”
Forensic examiner Anne Martine Sainte-Beauve said Giselle was visibly traumatized after her husband’s arrest, but calm and distant – a coping mechanism often used by survivors of terrorist attacks.
Giselle herself has said that she is “a field of ruins” and that she fears that the rest of her life may not be enough to rebuild herself.
Ms Sainte-Beuve said she found Giselle “extremely resilient”: “She turned something that could have destroyed her into a strength.”
Days before trial, the Pelicots’ divorce was finalized.
Giselle reverted to her maiden name. In court, she gave her name as Pellicote so that her grandchildren could be “proud” to be related to her, and was not ashamed to be related to Dominic.
Since then, she moved to a village far from Mazan. She sees a psychiatrist but does not take any medication because she no longer wants to ingest any substances. She continues to go for long walks, but she doesn’t get tired anymore.
In the first days of the trial, Caroline’s husband Pierre appeared in court.
The lawyer asked him about the Mazan years, when Giselle suffered from memory loss and her husband dutifully accompanied her to useless medical appointments. How could the family not understand what was happening?
Pierre shook his head.
“You’re forgetting one thing,” he said. “You cannot imagine the unimaginable.”
