MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Trash Bag (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

In December 1988, a young woman was having coffee at her friend's house in the city of Tours, France. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and when she opened the lid of the toilet, she saw two small, gold objects floating in the water. They looked like beads, or maybe broken pieces of jewelry. She leaned down to get a closer look – and then she realized what they actually were.   You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on my YouTube channel, just called "MrBallen" - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallen If you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In December of 1988, a young woman was having coffee at her friend's house in the city of Tor, France. And at some point, she excused herself to go use the bathroom. And when she opened the lid of the toilet, she saw, in the bowl, were two small gold objects floating in the water. They looked like beads at first, or maybe broken pieces of jewelry. And so she leaned down close to get a better look. And then she realized what they actually were. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, and you've come to the right place because that's all we do.

So if that's of interest to you, please ask the follow button to go get a matching tattoo with you. But after they finish getting theirs done, leave without getting yours. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the night of December 11, 1988, a 38-year-old woman named Francois Gendron touched up her lipstick in the bathroom mirror of a nightclub in the city of Tor, France. Her best friend, Sylvie Reverego, was washing her hands of the single. right next to her. Francoise and Sylvie were best friends. They had basically known each other forever since they were just little kids. And these days, they went out together almost every single

night. They were both divorced, and Francoz's 19-year-old son had recently moved out of the house, so she was making the most of her new freedom and staying out late all the time, often with Sylvie. Now, Francois and Sylvie were not exactly the same in terms of their attitude towards life. Francoise had always been much more sociable and had this huge circle of friends. And so really, she was the one who often had to push her much more introverted friend, Sylvie, to come out with her. But she usually did. However, tonight, it was Francoise who turned to Sylvie and said that she actually wanted to go home now. She told Sylvie that the men they were there with at the club, Michelle and Luke, were making her feel uncomfortable and she wanted to leave.

Now, it was clear to Francois pretty much immediately that Sylvie was pretty disappointed. You know, despite being introverted, now that they were out, Sylvie wanted to stay out. And also, I mean, they regularly went out with Michelle and Luke, and there was never any issues before. And so she said as much to Francoise. Like, what do you mean? Like, what's the issue? But Francoise just said she was getting a weird vibe from both of them and just would feel better if she went home. And so a few minutes later, Francois and Sylvie walked back to the table where Michelle and Luke were still sitting.

And there was a receipt on the table and Michelle was putting his wallet away. like he had just paid for it. And actually, Michelle, he turned to the women and he said, hey, are you guys ready to leave and go to the next club? But Francoise, she just kind of smiled and grabbed her coat and said that actually she was going to leave now. She said she had to get home to her boyfriend, who was probably already at her apartment and waiting for her.

The men were pretty surprised by this and maybe even a little bit offended. And Michel actually asked Francois, like, hey, are you sure everything's okay here? Like, is that really the reason you're leaving? And Francois just said, yep, everything's fine. I just got to go. But she could definitely tell that the men did not believe her. But Francois didn't really care.

I mean, at this point, she really just wanted to leave. And so she just turned and gave Sylvia a hug and then just said by to the group. We were just kind of sitting there somewhat stunned this is happening so quickly. And then Francois turned and she hustled right out of the club and flagged down a cab before any of them could follow her. The next morning, Francois woke up in her own bed to the sound of her boyfriend, Eve Martan, bustling around her bedroom and getting dressed. She rolled over to look at her alarm clock and saw that it was 8 a.m. Francois sat up and Eve turned to her and said good morning, but she immediately noticed that his voice was cold.

And she knew why. The night before when she had come home, they had gotten into a big argument because he had been waiting for her for quite a while, for hours by the time she finally got there. That was the reason she had to leave and it really had upset him. And in many ways, this was not like a one-off issue in their relationship. It was a recurring one. Francois was always staying out super late with her friends and often with her male friends.

And Eve felt like she was basically prioritizing all of them over him. He worked during the day, so the evenings were really the only time that he and Francoise could reasonably get together. But Francois never seemed to get home until super late, and at that point it was too late for Eve to come over or vice versa, and so they just didn't get to see each other as much as they could be. And so now, Francois knew she had to do something to try to smooth things over with her boyfriend. So she turned to Eve and said, hey, do you want to come over tonight after get off work? And she promised she would actually be home when he got there so they could cook dinner together

and just spend some time together. It would be just a night for them. And at that, Francois saw Eve's shoulders immediately relax. And then he turned around and he smiled at her and said, you know what, I'd really, really like that. And so at this point, the mood in the room completely shifted. They were sort of back on good terms. And so as Eve finished getting dressed, he asked Francoise, what else? she had going on that day. And she told him that she had a handyman she knew named Christian

Moreau, who was coming by that morning to put up new wallpaper in the apartment. So she'd very likely be stuck at home for most of the day while he worked on it. The two chatted for a bit longer, and then once Eve was ready to leave, Francoise kissed him goodbye. And then after he left, Francois pulled herself out of bed and put on a rope. And then she went into the kitchen and she opened up a can of food for her cat, and then she made herself some coffee. She was a bit hungover from the night before and she thought maybe a warm bath would make her feel better. So after she drank her coffee, she ran a bath, she got into the water, and she closed her eyes. At 11 am. the next morning, so December 13th, a janitor at the Trousseau Hospital in Tor, France, was carrying a trash bag

out to the dumpster when he noticed something odd. There were two blue trash bags just sitting out on a strip of grass in the middle of the hospital's parking lot. Now, the trash bags they used at the hospital were gray. So the janitor knew these bags, these blue bags, had to have been left there by someone from outside of the hospital. So the janitor walked over to the bags and sort of inspected them from the outside and they were sort of bulky but you couldn't really tell what was inside of them. And then he just reached down and he opened one of them. And when he saw what was inside, he immediately stumbled back, turned and ran inside, shouting for someone to call the police. About an hour later, so just before noon on December 13, 1988,

Chief Inspector Francois Barbier of the Tor police department walked across the parking lot of the Tresot Hospital. He'd been sent out here to investigate human remains that had been found outside of the hospital. And he was the first officer to arrive on the scene, and so now a janitor was walking with him to show him the way to where the remains had been found. They walked over to a grassy strip in the middle of the parking lot,

and they stopped next to a pair of blue trash bags. Inspector Barbier knelt down and he opened up one of the bags, and inside he saw very clearly there were two severed arms and the lower part of two legs. He opened up the other blue bag and he found it contained a woman's torso, but there was no pelvis, no thighs, and no head. Barbier turned to the janitor, who he knew had found the remains, and he asked him, like, when did you find this? And the janitor said that he had been out doing his rounds, throwing his own trash away around 11 a.m., and that's when he had seen them. but they definitely had not been there when he had done his rounds at 9 a.m. that day. So clearly these had to have been dropped up sometime between 9 and 11.

RBA stood up and looked around, and he noticed there actually was a medical school right down the street. And for a second, he wondered if maybe this was all just a tasteless prank by some of the students who could have maybe stolen a cadaver from the hospital's morgue and dropped it here. But as he thought about it, he just couldn't imagine medical students desecrating a huge. human body like that. I mean, even as a prank, it just seemed not possible. And so to him, it just seemed like the more obvious answer here, albeit a gruesome one, was that this woman contained in these two bags had been murdered. And whoever killed her, chopped her body up and put them in these bags because it would be easier to dispose of her body that way. And so Barbier hoped that when

the forensics team showed up, they'd be able to find fingerprints from the killer on the blue trash bags. Because at this point, I mean, they didn't have a head of this woman. The victim didn't have a head. And so it could be very challenging to identify who it was. And if you didn't know who the victim was, it would be even harder to narrow down who might have killed her. Four days later, on the afternoon of December 17th, Barbier was reading over an autopsy report at his desk. After the initial discovery of those blue trash bags at the hospital, more body parts from what appeared to be the same body had been found dumped behind a clothing store in a commercial part of town. But the head was still missing. And with no clues as to who the victim was, the investigation

really was just barely crawling along. The police had put out a press release about the body's discovery, but so far no one had come forward with information, and there had been no women who had been reported missing in the area recently. Also, no usable fingerprints have been found on the trash bags. And so at this point, they really just didn't have forensic evidence, and so they were not able to even begin to track down who the killer was or what happened to them. And now, as Barbier continued to read through this autopsy report, he saw that the medical examiner had run the victim's fingerprints through the database, but there was no match. And so again, there's just like no leads in this case so far.

However, as Barbier continued reading through this report, he saw that the autopsy did reveal that the victim had died recently, probably only one day before her remains were discovered. She appeared to have bled to death from two deep gashes on her wrists. And there were also traces of an anti-anxiety medicine that was in her blood, which suggested she might have been drugged before she was killed. And Barbier was sort of baffled by this, because the method of murder almost seemed gentle and controlled compared to the extreme violence that was done to the body post-mortem.

Like those two things were totally in contrast with each other. And so he wondered if this was all done this way out of necessity. And so maybe the killer was just too small. or two weak or maybe both to kill the victim without sedating her first. And then also, along those same lines, maybe they couldn't move her body without chopping it up first. And so as Barbier is just sort of thinking through what could have happened here, the phone on his desk rang.

He put down the report and he picked up the phone and it was a woman who said that she had just seen a newspaper article about the dead body and she thought it could be a woman named Francois Gendron, who lived in an apartment complex called La Valé Violet. And so Barbier immediately sat up, he grabbed his pen and he wrote down the name and the address. But before he could ask who the caller was or why she thought the victim could be this woman Francoise, the caller hung up. Half an hour later, Barbier walked through the hallway on the first floor of the La Valet Violet apartment complex, where his mystery caller had told him his victim lived.

This was the first lead he had gotten since the body was found. So he was hopeful that something would come of it. Now, the woman who called didn't actually give the apartment number for her. Francoise, just that she lived in this complex. And so Barbier just literally walked down the hallway and knocked on an apartment door at random. And the man who answered, Barbier asked him if he knew a woman named Francois Gendron and did she live here. And the man just nodded and said, yep, she lives here. And then he pointed to a door right down the same hallway. And then the man, unprompted, told Barbier that he hadn't seen anybody go in or out of that apartment for at least a few days.

and he was starting to get worried about Francoz's cat. Barbier's heart began to race, because if Francoz really did live in that apartment and she really hadn't been around in days, well, it seemed very possible that she was his victim. So he thanked the man and said he would handle it, and then he walked down the hallway to the door, and he knocked. And there was no answer.

But he could hear a cat meowing inside. And so at this point, Barbier was feeling really confident about the anonymous tip. And so he just turned, and hurried back out to his car, and he radioed for a forensics team to come to this apartment complex. And then a few minutes later, they arrived carrying a battering ram to break down the door. So Barbier and the team, they go back down the hallway to Francoise's door. Barbier got out of the way, and then the officers smashed it down with this ram.

And then once it was open, Barbier stepped inside the apartment. As soon as Barbier was in this apartment, he was standing in the living room. And he looked around and nothing seemed disturbed. However, when he left the living room and went into the kitchen, it was a different story. Now, the kitchen was not a total disaster, but there was a broken dish on the ground and some food items that must have been on the dish at some point that also were scattered across the floor. And so just at first glance, it appeared like maybe some sort of struggle happened in here. However, Barbier looked around the kitchen and he didn't find any blood anywhere. So it was just this broken plate.

And then when Barbier checked the rest of the apartment, no drawer. or closets looked like they'd been ransacked, so this didn't appear like an apartment that had been robbed at any point. However, one thing Barbier did notice was in the bedroom, there were a few unopened rolls of wallpaper on a stool, like as if somebody had been about to do some work in the bedroom, but then just didn't. Barbier told the forensics team to first make sure the cat got fed, because there was a cat in here, and the cat was a little malnourished, but basically okay. and then to sweep the apartment for fingerprints to see whether Francoza's prince matched the victim.

And if she was the victim, he was hoping they might also find fingerprints or blood inside the apartment from whoever might have killed her. And so the forensics team, they got to work, and Barbier, he just continued sort of walking around the apartment, looking at photos that were out on display, to maybe get a sense of Francoise's body size to sort of mentally compare it to the victim's body.

And as he was doing this, he happened to glance out the window and he saw a young man standing on the sidewalk outside who clearly was watching the police through the glass. And when Barbier locked eyes with this guy, the guy suddenly looked terrified and he just turned and began speedwalking away, at which point Barbier opened up the window and shouted at the sky to stay right where he was. An hour later, Inspector Barbier walked into an interview room at the Tor police station and sat down across from the young man who had been watching Francoise's apartment. By now, he knew this man's name was Eve Martan,

and he claimed to have been Francoise's boyfriend. And so Barbier sits down and he asks Eve, you know, what were you doing outside of Francois's apartment when I saw you? And Eve said that he had just come by the apartment to see if Francois was home, but like he got there and saw police inside and he knew something was wrong. But he specified that he hadn't seen or heard from her in about five days and didn't know she was missing like the last time he spoke to her was the morning of December 12th. Now, the instant Eve said December 12th, Barbier thought of two things.

One is that was actually the day before the body was found in the parking lot. And two, based on the autopsy report, it was presumed that the victim was killed the day before her body was found. So December 12th. And so it's pretty suspicious that this guy is mentioning December 12th as the last time he saw Francoise. And so Barbier leaned in and he asked Eve to elaborate about the last time he saw Francoise on the 12th.

And Eve said he had seen Francoise at her own apartment when he left the apartment around 8 a.m. on the 12th. And the two of them had made plans to meet up again at her place that evening. But he said when he got there that night, she wasn't home. But this was not unusual for her. So Eve explained that he just let himself inside her apartment with the spare key she had given him. And he just made himself dinner and he watched TV while he waited for her to eventually show up. And then he said at around 8 p.m. her landline, her home landline phone began to ring.

Eve said that he answered the phone, which was not totally unusual, and he said the person who was calling claimed to be one of Francoise's friends. Eve said he didn't recognize the voice, but he said Francois had a big circle of friends, and he for sure did not know all of them. But Eve told Barbier that this caller was not calling the apartment to try to reach Francois. They were calling the apartment to reach him, Eve, to tell him that apparently Francoise had decided to go out of town this weekend with some other friends and that she would not be home tonight. And Eve said this was not the first time that Francois had ditched him. And so in his frustration

after being told this by this friend, he said he grabbed his dinner plate and just chucked it on the floor and shattered it and then he left. Barbier was surprised to hear this. And he was thinking if Eve was the type of person who would immediately start breaking things over something that, you know, didn't seem like that big of a deal. Well, what else was he capable of? However, as potentially suspicious as Eve was. Barbier had not actually confirmed whether Francoise was even his victim. This could just be a coincidence here that she left town right before this body was found. Like she could be just fine. And so before Barbier let Eve go, because he couldn't really hold him at this point, he asked Eve to just give him a detailed account of what else he had done on December 12th.

He wanted to get the full timeline of what he did on that day. And Eve just said after he had left Francoz's apartment that morning when he and Francois had made plans to meet up that night. He said he had spent most of the day at work. And then he had gone back to Francois's apartment after work. And then after he had waited around for a while and got that phone call and broke the plate, he said he had just left and gone straight to his own apartment, which he shared with his mother, and he was there all night. And so Barbier wrote down what he said and made a note to follow up on his alibi. And then before he let Eve go, he just asked him if, if Francois was planning to go anywhere or meet anybody on the day he last saw her. And Eve, he thought about it for a moment. And then he said,

yeah, actually, there was one thing Francoise had mentioned to him. She had told him that an acquaintance named Christian Moreau was supposed to come over her apartment later that morning to put up some new wallpaper in her apartment. The next morning, December 18th, Inspector Barbier knocked on the door of Christian's apartment, the guy who was going to put up the wallpaper. Now, at this point, Forensics still had not confirmed whether or not Francois was the victim. But for the time being, Barbier was working under the assumption that she was. A few seconds later, a young man answered the door and confirmed he was Christiane Moreau. And so Barbier asked him if he remembered going to Francois Gendron's apartment on December 12th.

And Christiane said, yes, he did remember, but he seemed confused about why he was being asked about it by a police officer. Barbier explained that Francoise was presumed to be missing and had even been possibly killed on the same day that Christian was at her apartment. And Christiane looked very surprised to hear this. And he just said, you know, I was there on the 12th. I got there around 10 a.m. that morning. Francois seemed perfectly fine. She appeared to have just gotten out of the bath and it just didn't seem like anything was wrong. However, Christian said he was only in the apartment around Francois for like a minute because he just dropped off the new wall.

and was going to install it on another day. So it was a very brief interaction, but again, she seemed fine during this very brief interaction. Barbier obviously had seen those rolls of new wallpaper just sitting in Francoise's apartment, so he figured this part of Christian's story had to be true that he must have dropped them off. But it did seem a bit odd to drop the wallpaper off on one day and then come back at another time to actually perform the work. Like you could easily just do those two things at the same time. So he wondered whether this had actually been the plan all along, or if something unexpected had happened inside of the apartment with Francoise,

that had somehow stopped Christian from installing the wallpaper on that first visit. So Barbier asked Christian for his alibi for the rest of the day that Francois had last been seen, which was the 12th, and Christian went over his entire day, he provided all the information, and then afterwards, Barbier, after taking down some notes, he said he would be in touch. Now, at this moment, Barbier didn't have enough evidence to hold Christian. for more questioning. But as he walked back to his car, Barbier hoped that forensics might find some fingerprints or blood in Francoise's apartment that could implicate Christian. A day later, Barbier sat sat down at his desk and read over a forensics report on Francois's apartment. Now, there hadn't been

any blood traces found, but a set of fingerprints had been pulled from the phone, and they matched the hands that had been found inside the blue trash bag. So this confirmed that Francoise was indeed the victim. But so far, there was no evidence pointing to who killed her. Eve, Francoise's boyfriend, his alibi checked out. And that handyman, Christiane, he also had a solid alibi. And then as for Francoz's 19-year-old son, who was serving in the military, well, he was confirmed to have been at his barracks over 200 miles away at the time of the murder. And so he was ruled out as a suspect, and then also he would say that he had not heard from his mother since several days before she was actually killed. Barbier was still trying to figure out who was that person who called Francois's

apartment when Eve was there to tell Eve that, hey, your girlfriend's going to be out of town this weekend, because it just seemed like that was pretty suspicious, and this person who was calling must know something about Francoise's death. But this was the 1980s, so it was harder to get a hold of phone logs than it is today. Now, Barbier had submitted an order for those phone logs, but the order had to be signed by a judge still, and then it could also take several more days beyond that to actually get the records. And so there was a bit of a wait. However, just then, another officer knocked on Barbier's door and said that a phone call had just come in from someone claiming to have information about Francois Gendrone. And so Barbier, he picks up the phone

and he hears a woman's voice. And this woman tells him that she has information on Francoise. And Barbier immediately wondered, like, is this the same anonymous woman who called in before with that tip that Francoise was the victim? But Barbier just couldn't quite tell. if it was the same voice. And so this woman told Barbier that she had been a very close friend of Francoise's and she knew about two men named Michel and Luke who might have been involved in Francois's death. She said right before she died, Francois had found out that these two men were secretly involved in drug trafficking. And apparently they had talked about killing Francois if she reported them to the police. Specifically, the caller said these two men had threatened Francois that they would drug her,

her, bleed her out, chop her into pieces, and then cut off her head so she could never be identified. Early the next morning, so on December 20, 1988, seven days after Francoz's body was found, Chief Inspector Barbier pulled up outside of a discount store in a shopping area in Tor. In front of the store, there were two men unloading boxes from a semi-truck. Barbier, he got out of his car and he began walking towards them. And when these two men saw the detective approaching, they immediately seemed sort of of panicked. And when Barbier got close enough, he asked them if they were the store's owners, Michel and Luke. And one of the men nodded. At which point Barbier said, you two are coming with me.

About an hour later, Barbier walked down the hallway at the police station past the doors of the interrogation rooms where Michel and Luke were currently being held. But first, he wanted to speak to the third person the police had brought in for questioning that morning, Sylvie Reverigo, who happened to be Francoise's best friend, and friends with Michelle and Luke. And he sat down across from her and he basically said, look, like, we know you're connected to the two men, Michelle and Luke, and also to Francois. And we want to know if you know anything about these two guys, because apparently they could have been threatening Francois. We think they could be involved. Tell me everything you know. And Sylvie would tell

Barbier that she was actually scared of Michelle and Luke. And that was why she had not come to police yet because she was worried if she told them what she knew, they would hurt her. She told Barbier that those two, those two men, had told her, Sylvie, that they intended to kill Francois because they were worried that Francois was going to report them to police for drug trafficking and selling stolen cars. And Sylvie said she didn't know if they were actually capable of that, but she just was too worried about going to the police about it and fear they would find out and then she would become a target as well. And so he and Sylvie chatted for a bit longer and he got to. some additional information about when exactly they spoke to her and said this and some other details

about sort of their demeanor and the people they hung out with. And then after that, Barbier got up, he left the interrogation room and in the hallway, he caught up with the detective who had actually already begun interrogating Luke. And the detective said that so far, Luke had totally refused to cooperate and he'd outright denied even knowing who Sylvie was. Barbier sighed when he heard this and he had a feeling right away that Michel was not going to be any more cooperative. But he was going to try his best to crack him. So Barbier went into the room where Michel was being held, and after he sat down, he just asked Michel if he had seen the news

about that woman who was found chopped up in trash bags in a hospital parking lot. And Michel said, yes, he had heard about that. And then he made a joke that maybe a surgeon at the hospital had made a pretty bad mistake or something. Barbier didn't react to the joke, and instead he just pulled out a folder, and slid it across the table. And then Michel, he opened it up,

and what he saw were photos of those blue trash bags and also photos of the severed body parts that have been found inside of them. And when Michel saw these pictures, he went completely pale. Barbier then asked Michel, do you know who that body belonged to? And Michel, he just looked up and shook his head and said no.

Barbier just stared at Michel for a moment, sort of just gauging his reaction. And then eventually he said, well, the body belonged to Francoise Gendrone. When Michel heard this, he really looked like he was in complete shock. But Barbier immediately followed up and said, Michel, did you kill Francois? And Michel, his reaction was to immediately shout,

no, that Francoise was a great friend of his and he would never hurt her. Barbier was crazy for thinking he would do that. And then again and again, he just insisted that he was completely innocent here. Now, immediately, Barbier thought Michel's reaction here was pretty genuine. But just then, there was a knock on the door, and so Barbier, he got up and he stepped out into the hallway, and another officer told him that the forensics team had just found a piece of evidence that almost certainly would crack this case wide open.

Based on forensic evidence and an eventual confession, this is what police believe happened to Francois Gendron on the morning of December 12, 1988. Around 10 a.m., the killer knocked on the door of Francois's apartment. Francois answered the door, wrapped in a towel, and told the killer to come on inside. The killer stepped in and they acted very friendly and casual, as if this visit was nothing out of the ordinary. But after the two had chatted for a while, the killer decided it was time to put their plan into action.

After all, Francoise was a problem for them, and they had to deal with her once and for all. So at some point, the killer told Francoise that they had something they wanted to show her and asked if she would come over to the killer's home just for a minute to show them. Francois eventually agreed, and once she got dressed, the two of them headed out together. And so the two of them, they walked their way to the killer's home, they go inside, and then before the killer is going to show Francois, you know, what they brought them over here to show them, they first made them both a pot of tea. And critically, the killer crushed up a few anti-anxiety pills and put those in the bottom of Francoise's cup of tea.

Then the killer brought the tea over to the kitchen table where Francois was sitting, and the killer sat down with her and they both drank their tea. The killer made sure Francois drank her entire cup, but by the time Francois had finished T, she was so sedated from the drugs that she could barely sit up. At this point, the killer knew they could move on to the next phase of their plan. And so the killer at this point lifted Francois up out of the seat. She didn't put up a fight. And they carried her over to the bathroom and they put her into the tub and they turned on the water. And then eventually when the water filled up high enough, the killer just pushed Francois's head under the water. And again, Francois, because of the drugs, couldn't do anything

to stop it. And she remained under the water until she fell unconscious. Then the killer grabbed a nearby scalpel, reached into the tub, and cut each of Francoise's wrists. And then Francoise just laid in the tub and bled out. After Francois was dead, the killer simply drained the tub and then cut Francois's body into pieces to make it easier to dispose of. They took the pieces of her limbs and torso and shoved them into blue trash bags and then dumped them in the parking lot of a nearby hospital 10 minutes away. But the bigger problem for the killer was Francoz's head. The killer wanted to completely erase Francoise's identity. So for that reason, they kept her head at their home and they put it in the oven and they cooked it overnight. So the skull would then become soft enough that they could crush it

with a hammer. And then after smashing up Francoise's head, they would flush Francoise's teeth down the toilet, and they would take the other pieces of her head, and they would throw them into a nearby river. However, despite all this effort, the killer forgot one thing, which was they put Francoise's hands in those blue trash bags, and so her body was identified by her fingerprints just a few days later. And then not long after that, a tip soon led the police right to the killer's door, and when they investigated the killer's home, they found crucial pieces of evidence in her bathroom. The killer was Francoise's own best friend, Sylvie Reverigo. Sylvie had always been sort of jealous of Francoise, primarily because she seemed happy all the time.

And on top of that, Francoise got a lot of attention from men, which just, again, made Sylvie jealous. And since the two women, post-divorce, were spending so much time together even more than in their childhood, their friendship had gotten suffocatingly close. And over this recent period of time where they were sort of on top of, of each other, Sylvie's jealousy and sort of resentment towards Francoise turned into full-blown hatred. Initially, Sylvie had tried to pin the murder on Michel and Luke by telling another friend of Francoise's, a woman named Yvette, that those two men had threatened to kill Francois. And just as Sylvie had hoped, Yvette had called the police and passed along what she had said. But,

unbeknownst to Sylvie, Yvette also shared another tip with the investigators, which was that few days after the murder, Yvette's own daughter had happened to go to Sylvie's house, and her daughter had found two gold dental crowns in the toilet. And the daughter and Yvette both knew that Francois had gold dental crowns. So by the time Sylvie was brought in for questioning, Inspector Barbier was already pretty sure she must have had something to do with Francoise's death. And so police would search Sylvie's home, and they would find traces of blood, and they would also find some of Francoise's jewelry hidden inside of a box. And then when Sylvie was confronted with all this evidence and testimony during her interrogation,

Sylvie Reverigo was charged with Francoz's murder on December 21, 1988. Three years later, she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin.

Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacassio. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasiano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whitlocasio, and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley.

Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner, theme song Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice.

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