TOP NEWS: Rapist swallows poison pill moments after being found guilty of sex attack on murdered woman

THE man who kidnapped and raped a woman before she was killed in northern France tried to poison himself in court moments after being convicted of the crime.

Willy Bardon, 45, was on trial over the 2002 death of Elodie Kulik when he ingested a pesticide at the courthouse in Amiens on Friday, December 6. He had just been sentenced to 30 years in prison for rape and for kidnapping and holding a person against their will followed by death when he took the pill. He was however acquitted of her murder.

According to Amiens prosecutor Alexandre de Bosschere, analysis showed Bardon had swallowed a tablet just seconds after the verdict was announced. French journalists inside the courtroom also described seeing Bardon swallow an unidentified pill in the defendant’s box.

It came at the end of a high-profile trial into one of France’s bigger cold cases, in which DNA evidence and witness testimony had led police to Bardon.

Elodie Kilik was kidnapped, raped, strangled and her corpse then burned in 2002 in Tertry. The 24-year-old bank worker had managed to call emergency services moments before she died and the harrowing recording was a key piece of evidence in the trial as 6 witnesses said they recognised Bardon’s voice on the tape.

Police also used a new DNA searching technique in 2011 which led them to conclude another man Grégory Wiart, who died in a car accident in 2003, was one of the killers of Elodie.

Throughout the trial, Bardon insisted he was innocent, even protesting to the parents of Kulik that he had not been at the scene.

The victim’s father, Jacky Kulik, broke down in tears as the verdict was announced, while embracing relatives also in court. He said: “Now justice has been done for Elodie. Tomorrow, I will be able to go to her grave and that of Rose-Marie (his wife) and tell them that I did my job.”

In a a tragic case of events, Mr Kulik’s wife died after a suicide attempt and he also subsequently lost two children in a car accident after Elodie’s death.

As Euro Weekly News understands, Bardon is under round-the-clock police surveillance in hospital and is “progressively emerging from a coma” but is still in critical condition. Prosecutor Alexandre de Bosschere said: “The product ingested is a pesticide called Temik. It’s an extremely dangerous product which affects the nervous and cardio-vascular systems.”

After he was taken to hospital, Bardon’s defence lawyer Stephane Daquo said: “It is clear that Mr Bardon tried to kill himself. He had said repeatedly that he could not bear going back to prison,” adding that the defence would appeal a conviction that he claimed was based “on a simple impression”.