The defense of Sébastien Bettencourt concluded the debates at the end of a four-day trial on Monday, April 13, 2026, in Montauban, at the Assize Court of Tarn-et-Garonne. Attorney Morgane Morin tried to overturn the reading of the case, arguing that the act was committed in a state of extreme confusion, close to sleepwalking. This was a final attempt to avoid the life sentence requested a few hours earlier by the prosecutor Sauvage. The verdict is expected later in the day.
On this fourth and final day of the trial, Sébastien Bettencourt is being judged for the murder of his wife Isabelle, accused of acts of torture and cruelty committed on March 13, 2023, in Lamothe-Capdeville. At 1:00 p.m., after a brief break, the trial resumed. The defense is preparing to make its final arguments before the jury deliberates.
A young lawyer faces her first trial for homicide
Attorney Morgane Morin, a young Montalban lawyer, steps up to the bar. This is her first solo trial in an Assize Court, her first homicide case. For an hour, she will try to humanize her client and challenge the certainty of a conscious and voluntary act.
She questions the arguments put forward by the prosecution and the civil parties. “How could an ordinary man commit these acts? It’s as incomprehensible for him.” She adds, “It’s not that he doesn’t want to answer, it’s that he can’t. He has nothing to hide, he has already lost everything.”
The defense then challenges the motives suggested: jealousy, crime of passion, or refusal to separate from his wife. “These are simplistic explanations.” According to her, if there was jealousy or a refusal to separate, there would have been arguments or altercations that night. “What the children heard were only the screams of their mother.”
The theory of an unconscious act
Attorney Morin argues that “nothing indicated what was about to happen.” She explores the theory of an unconscious act: sleepwalking, or even sexsomnia. “I, too, had doubts. I did my research. The person is in a state of confusion. They were not in their normal state.”
She points out that Dr. Olivier, the psychiatrist who examined the accused in custody, described the facts as “irrational.” Sébastien Bettencourt always claimed to be “awake” in his statements, even when his hands were already around his wife’s neck. “He was witnessing helplessly, without control, unable to release his hands.”
She then recounts the gruesome timeline established by the experts: acts of torture and cruelty, extreme sexual violence, perforations of the abdomen through the vagina and rectum, knife wounds, and finally strangulation. “When he came back to himself, he was at the final act. He was shocked. He was acting like an automaton.”
According to the defense, the accused was not conscious of his actions, especially the sexual violence. “He acted in a state of criminal sleepwalking.”
A critique against the experts
The lawyer then targets the experts. “Without being specialists in sleepwalking, they claim that Sébastien’s behavior does not correspond to this condition because it was too long, too elaborate.”
She reveals that the experts discovered during the trial that the accused had experienced other episodes of sleepwalking until the age of 18, according to his ex-mother-in-law’s testimony, who claimed that he had come to touch her genitals several times while he was asleep.
“There is a clinical deficiency,” Morin quotes. Then she directly confronts an expert: “He said, ‘I will research when I return from the trial.’ It should have been done before, not after the trial.”
The lawyer mentions three cases of criminal sleepwalking recorded in judicial literature. In one of them, she says, “irresponsibility was considered.” She talks about amnesia, “flashes,” and an unconscious mechanism of protection. “This proves that Sébastien is not a monster. It’s not a crime of destruction, it’s a crime of despair.”
These words cause the collapse of the accused’s two daughters, who leave the room in tears.
“Maintain some hope for him”
Morin rejects the life sentence requested by the prosecution. “Life imprisonment should be reserved for those who should never be released. That’s not the case here. The experts did not consider him dangerous. The risk of reoffending is very low. Do not take away all hope from him, it would dehumanize him.”
Before the break, President Marie Leclair commends the lawyer for her first plea.
One last time, she gives the accused the opportunity to speak. Sébastien Bettencourt, with a broken voice: “I am genuinely sorry… I’m sorry if this seems ridiculous. That’s all I can do. I can’t do better.”
The jury deliberates. The verdict is expected later in the day.
