79‑Year‑Old French Woman Faces Trial Over 1995 Murder Mystery
In a cold‑case that has haunted French police since 1995, Marie‑Thérèse Garcia, 79, is now at the centre of a criminal trial in Versailles. She is charged with the kidnapping and murder of her former sister‑in‑law, Corinne Di Dio, whose dismembered body was discovered in a metal trunk floating in the Seine west of Paris.
Di Dio vanished in June 1995, only to be found on a later day in a chain‑bound trunk. The body was missing its head and hands; a 1997 forensic identification linked it to Di Dio, though missing body parts have never been recovered.
Garcia initially drew police suspicion, but the case had closed twice due to insufficient evidence. A breakthrough came in 2023 when DNA analysis of hair found in the trunk tied the sample either to Garcia or to a relative. Defense counsel Najwa El Haïté has argued that the method of dismemberment resembles organised‑crime tactics, not those of a previously unrecorded woman.
The three‑week trial, scheduled to begin at the main courthouse in Versailles, will invoke Garcia’s alleged motive—claiming she lured Di Dio to a reunion where she was murdered and dismembered. Prosecutors point to an alleged partnership with Spanish drug‑trade figure Antonio Marquez‑Gomez, who is believed to reside untraceably in Colombia.
Garcia, often dubbed “Ma Dalton” by French media because of her fierce persona, maintains her innocence and describes the case as built on “sand.” The lawyer also notes that the body was dismembered using methods that would be used by the underworld, adding that “no head, no hands are not the method of a woman with no criminal record.”
Additional evidence will include testimony from Nancy, Garcia’s daughter, who reported hearing her mother discuss murder on the phone within days before Di Dio’s disappearance. Critics also highlight a 2022 disappearance of a young couple whose great‑niece was related to Garcia, with police noting a phone tap on Garcia where she warned that, “if I caught the culprits I would cut them up and put the pieces in a suitcase.”
Romain, the child of Di Dio and Garcia’s lover, now 41, was left in the care of Garcia’s parents before being moved to Spain with his father. He described the event as a trauma that has left a lasting scar.
The case underscores an intertwined web of familial ties, criminal networks, and the enduring pull of a decades‑old crime that has only now come to light. The verdict will be announced after a thorough examination of the evidence, the first in what has been one of France’s oldest-held cases involving a female defendant.
