Maurice Gateaux

Maurice Gateaux (2 August 1936 – 17 May 2019) was a French serial killer, multi-recidivist killer and prisoner who spent 51 years in prison without benefit of a reduced sentence.

In 1956, Gateaux killed an Algerian prisoner without being prosecuted, because he was intellectually disabled and the events took place during the Algerian War. In 1965, he committed a robbery by fatally beating a police officer. Placed in detention at the age of 28 in April 1965, he was sentenced in 1966 to 20 years' imprisonment before being transferred to the Nîmes Central Prison due to his diagnosed dangerousness. Incarcerated at Nîmes Prison, Gateaux killed a prison guard in May 1967 and attempted to kill another guard with a pair of scissors he was using in the sewing workshop. Tried in February 1968, he was granted mitigating circumstances on account of his intellectual disability, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Released in July 2016 at the age of almost 80, Gateaux was cared for in a nursing home in Soissons, where he died on 17 May 2019. Between 6 April 1965 and July 2016, Gateaux remained in prison, without being granted a modified sentence, making his case the longest uninterrupted detention in France.

Biography

Youth Maurice Gateaux was born on 2 August 1936 in , Aisne. He was the sixth child of a first marriage, whose mother subsequently gave birth to ten other children. Gateaux had a difficult birth, almost suffocating, which delayed his physical growth.

From 1942 to 1950, he was educated at the local school, where he was finally expelled at the age of 14. Gateaux left the local school in 1950 with poor reading and writing skills. He also began to drink alcohol, which led him to undergo several detoxification threatments.

In May 1966, Gateaux appeared before the Assize Court, charged with fatal blows and robbery. He was granted extenuating circumstances because he had been diagnosed as intellectually disabled, which impaired his discernment and reduced his responsibility. At the end of his trial, Gateaux was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. In August, while serving his prison sentence, Gateaux was transferred to the Nîmes central prison, described by President Panet (who would later judge him) as being intended for ‘particularly fearsome convicts who require severe discipline.

The longest continuous detention in France On the night of 20 to 21 July 1974, the sewing room at the Maison Centrale in Nîmes, where Marius Albe had died, was set on fire, killing two inmates.

Sentenced to life imprisonment, Maurice Gateaux was eligible for release in May 1982, but refused to be released, arguing that he felt ‘at home’ in prison. During his captivity, he worked out until 2011. For many long years, Gateaux was incarcerated at the Château-Thierry penitentiary (Aisne), where he ‘resigned himself to dying in prison’, as one of his warders told the Courrier picard in 2014, which named him as one of the longest-serving prisoners in France.