She says she hears 'inner voices': 36-year-old woman goes on trial for kidnapping baby and trying to set mother on fire

La femme de 36 ans a été diagnostiquée schizophrène depuis les faits commis. ENVATO ELEMENTS – Keshakesha

A 36-year-old woman will appear before the Morbihan Assize Court in Vannes on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, for assault committed against a former FC Lorient player, Yoane Wissa. She must also defend herself against an attempted murder of the mother of an infant.

The trial of a 36-year-old woman, tried for having kidnapped a baby in 2021 and attempted to set the baby's mother on fire while she heard “inner voices”, opened on Tuesday before the Morbihan Assize Court. Laëtitia Penvern is accused of “attempted murder” for these acts committed on July 2, 2021, the victim having been seriously burned on 25% of the body, and “kidnapping a person under the age of 15”.

She is also being tried for having entered, the previous night, the home of Yoane Wissa, an international footballer currently playing in the English team Brentford and who was playing as a striker at Lorient at the time. The footballer, father of a little girl born a few weeks earlier, had been sprayed with a corrosive product which had injured his face when he surprised Laëtitia Pervern at his home. Although the accused admitted most of the facts, she denied having intended to kidnap Yoane Wissa's child, who was upstairs in the house when the break-in took place, and she asked forgiveness from the footballer, who was absent from the proceedings on Tuesday.

“I apologize for what I did to you, I feel very bad about it”, the accused also declared, addressing her other victim. The young woman's injuries, whom she had kissed after having sprayed her with a flammable liquid, have not yet healed and she will still have to undergo surgery, her lawyer, Philippe Arion, explained to AFP. Laëtitia Penvern had been arrested on July 3 with the newborn baby that she had taken from her victim. She had explained to investigators “that she had suffered a miscarriage that she had then hidden from those around her”, the Lorient prosecutor's office had indicated at the time of the events.

Diagnosed schizophrenic

“Cornered by his lies and various stratagems, she had found no other solution than to 'to kidnap a newborn child who could physically match the one expected', according to the same source. At the opening of the proceedings before the assize court, the thirty-year-old, with mid-length blond hair and suffering from overweight since childhood, frequently wipes her eyes in the dock.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia since the events, this mother of a 10-year-old child, who says she has suffered several miscarriages without this having been formally established, says she has been hearing voices since her adolescence and the separation of her parents. The mother of the accused assured the court that she “did not understand what happened three and a half years later”, Laëtitia Penvern having led people to believe that everyone around her that she was pregnant, then that the baby was hospitalized in Rennes. The verdict is expected on Friday.

The latter risks up to 30 years of criminal imprisonment