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Eric Borel (11 December 1978 – 24 September 1995) was a French student and spree killer who, at the age of 16, murdered his family in Solliès-Pont in the arrondissement of Toulon on September 23, 1995, and afterwards walked several miles to the village of Cuers where he continued his rampage the next day, shooting dead twelve other people and injuring four more, while pacing through the streets for half an hour. The shooting only ended when police arrived at the scene, wherupon Borel committed suicide.

Childhood

Eric Borel was the son of Marie-Jeanne Parenti and Jacques "Jacky" Borel, who were both working in the military at the time of his birth. However, their liaison was rather short, and after their paths departed, Eric was sent to Jacky's parents in Limoges, where he stayed until he was five. When his mother, who had visited Eric only occasionally up to that time, began to cohabit with Yves Bichet, she again took care of her son, much to his dislike, and took him to their home in Solliès-Pont.

Borel's mother, an authoritarian and – at least outwardly – religious person and activist in the Secours catholique, mistreated and beat him, who she believed to be a "child of sin"; moreover he never developed a close relation to his mother's new companion, with whom he was said to have frequent rows and who reportedly also beat him on occasions, though Franck and Jean-Luc Bichet, Yves Bichet's sons, stated that their father has always been nice to Eric, even building him a shack for his chickens and other animals he took home.

When Eric broke his arm at the age of eight, rather than to go home, he preferred to run away and hide, until he was found, shivering from pain. In this type of situation, Borel, who was known as a quiet and taciturn boy who kept to himself and rather tended the chickens in the backyard during his free time than to go out, grew up and developed an increasing admiration for the military, telling lies about heroic deeds of his father during the Indochina War and adoring his stepbrother Franck Bichet, who served in the army. He had an affection to weapons and used to shoot sparrows with an air gun.

Later years and motive

Until his death Eric Borel attended the lycée professionnel Georges-Cisson in Toulon, where he studied electromechanics and did quite well academically. He was said to be a disciplined and quiet student, but in his last year at school he showed some radical change in behaviour, skipping classes without permission or explanation and became unaffable. He regularly said that he could not bear it anymore at home, having enough of doing housework and being called names, and often stated his wish to join the military, like his father and grandfather. Apparently he also told one of his classmates the week prior to the shooting that he would commit suicide, but not before killing two or three people.

Borel had a single friend, 17-year-old Alan Guillemette, a classmate who was rather outgoing and popular among his peers and with whom he hang out after school.

Many reports erroneously stated his room being fully of Nazi-insignia, spuring rumors he was sympathising with fascist ideologies, even more so as his step-father had attended several meetings of the Front National in 1989, but besides a picture of Adolf Hitler cut out from a newspaper, graffiti displaying a swastika on his door, and a few books regarding World War II, as well as a documentary about David Koresh and the Waco siege no evidence was found after his death that he was interested in any kind of politics.

Also a girl from Cuers spread the story, Eric had told her about his relationship to his half-sister called Caroline, who was supposed to be his pregnant girlfriend, but this sister in question did not exist, nor was it true that his father had died from cancer shortly before his rampage.

Attacks

Familicide

The series of attacks started on September 23, 1995 at about 6:00 p.m. CET, when Borel killed his stepfather, Yves Bichet, in the kitchen by shooting him four times with a .22-caliber rifle, before smashing his head with a hammer. Police assumed that they had a quarrel beforehand, when Borel tried to run away from home. Subsequently to killing Bichet, Borel assaulted his half-brother, 11-year-old Jean-Yves Bichet, who was watching TV, in a similar manner, by first shooting him with the rifle and afterwards bludgeoning his head with the hammer. After wiping up the blood trails, Borel waited for his mother to come home.

As soon as his mother, Marie-Jeanne Parenti, arrived at home from church at about 8:30 p.m., Borel immediately killed her with a single shot to the head. In contrast to her husband and son no blunt force was used on Mrs. Parenti, although some reports have suggested that he beat her as well with either the hammer or a baseball bat.

When his mother lay dead, Borel once again started to clean the house from blood, covered the bodies with sheets and closed all shutters, as well as the steel gate. Carrying a bag packed with food, money, a raincoat, a map of Limoges, and a pistol shooting rubber bullets, which was erroneously identified as a .22-caliber pistol in some reports, and armed with his father's rifle and his pockets full of ammunition, Borel made his way towards Cuers, at first by car, but eventually he crashed it into a wall, where he continued his path by foot. Presumably he spent the night between vines.

The bodies of the murdered family were found at approximately 1 a.m. by Yves Bichet's son Jean-Luc, a student living in Antibes who only occasionally visited his father on weekends. After calling police Bichet was first considered a suspect in the murders when giving contradictory information. The absence of Eric Borel remained undetected until about three hours later.

Shooting spree

On the following day at 7:15 a.m., Borel arrived at the home of his friend Alan Guillemette and when Alan's mother opened the door Eric asked her to wake him. The two had a lengthy discussion in the garden, and apparently Eric wanted something from Alan, but when he declined and turned to go back into the house, Eric shot him in the back, mortally wounding him.

From 7:30 a.m. onwards, Borel started shooting people at random. No one grew suspicious of his rifle until it was too late, as it was hunting season and thus the sight of rifles outside not unexpected.

First he shot at Ginette Vialette through an open window, mortally wounding her, as well as Denise Otto, whom he killed, while she was bringing the trash out. He also hit Denise's husband, Jean, in the shoulder. Subsequently Borel injured an elderly woman who was walking in the streets with her husband and shot and wounded two brothers who were crossing his path. The shots he fired at Rodolphe Incorvala, once again through an open window, were eventually lethal. He later died in a hospital. Borel crossed the street to shoot and kill shopkeeper Mario Pagani, who was out buying a newspaper, with shots in the abdomen and head, as well as Moroccan Mohammed Maarad in front of the "Café du Commerce". Marius Boudon and André Touret were killed while they were drawing money from an ATM and Andrée Coletta while she was taking her poodle for a walk. Finally he shot Pascal Moustaki to death at Place Peyssoneau.

By 8:00 a.m., police arrived at the scene. Realizing that he was encircled Eric Borel committed suicide under a cypress tree in front of a school by shooting himself in the head. Observers of the rampage stated he had been poised and calm all the while, taking great care at aiming and shooting, hitting most of his victims in the head and returning when he didn't hit properly the first time. In total, Borel had fired about 40 shots.

On October 23, 1995, Jeanne Laugiero, 68, died in hospital from injuries sustained in the shooting, raising the death toll to 14 victims.

The last death in the killing spree was 68-year old Pierre Marigliano, who succumbed to his wounds on March 2, 1996, bringing the death toll to 15. Borel's shooting spree through the streets of Cuers was the deadliest act of mass murder in France since Christian Dornier killed 14 people in Luxiol on July 12, 1989.

Victims

• Yves Bichet, Eric Borel's stepfather
• Marie-Jeanne Parenti, Eric Borel's mother
• Jean-Yves Bichet, 11, Eric Borel's half brother
• Alan Guillemette, 17, a friend of Eric Borel
• Marius Boudon, 59
• Andrée Coletta, 65
• Rodolphe Incorvala, 59
• Jeanne Laugiero, 68
• Mohammed Maarad, 41
• Pierre Marigliano, 68
• Pascal Mostacchi, 15
• Denise Otto, 77
• Mario Pagani, 81
• André Touret, 62
• Ginette Vialette, 48

Among the wounded were Jean Otto and Jean Boursereau.

Wikipedia.org

Boy kills eleven in southern France

September 24, 1995

CUERS, France -- A teenager in southern France went on a deadly rampage this weekend, beating his parents and his 11-year-old brother to death with a hammer and baseball bat before embarking on a shooting spree in a nearby village. By the time Eric Borel was finished, twelve people -- including Borel, who turned the gun on himself -- were dead, and seven others seriously wounded.

Seventeen-year-old Borel attacked his stepfather, mother and brother on Saturday in Sollies-Pont, a village just outside the Mediterranean port of Toulon. Then he apparently walked to neighboring Cuers three miles away, and began firing randomly at passers-by with a .22-caliber rifle just after daybreak on Sunday.

"The killer had a peaceful look, calmly reloading his rifle. He headed toward city hall while continuing to fire and then he turned around to finish off the man whom he had wounded in the leg."

--Eyewitness

A resident of Cuers said that at first he thought Borel was setting off fireworks, then that he was shooting at pigeons. "Then we saw a man with a wounded leg," the man said. "The killer had a peaceful look, calmly reloading his rifle. He headed toward city hall while continuing to fire and then he turned around to finish off the man whom he had wounded in the leg."

Witnesses said that Borel walked casually through the streets of Cuers, a village of about 7,000 people, shooting "everything that moved." Police had no immediate theory on a motive for the killings.

Victims of the shootings were taken to neighboring towns or treated in an emergency medical station set up at the Cuers soccer stadium. Village officials also set up a temporary chapel where relatives and residents could go for solace in the wake of the rampage.

In Sollies-Pont, the bodies of Borel's three family members were not discovered until after the Cuers shooting spree. Borel's neighbors said that the family was not well known.

French teen kills 11, then self

September 24, 1995

Cuers, France - A taciturn teenager beat to death three members of his family then went on a shooting rampage, killing eight more people in this small southern town before committing suicide.

The youth, identified as Eric Borel, 17, began firing at passersby, apparently at random, with a .22-cal. rifle just after daybreak yesterday. Besides the dead, seven people were seriously wounded in this town of about 7,000 people.

The day before his shooting spree, police said, Borel fatally beat his stepfather, mother and 11-year-old brother with a hammer and a baseball bat. "It was like he was hunting birds," said Guy Sintes, the owner of a cafe in Cuers. Television footage from the scene, a sunny village near the Mediterranean port of Toulon, showed sidewalks and a car spattered with blood and a bullet hole through a shop window. "The people are devastated, totally traumatized. The village is in shock," said Cuers Mayor Guy Gigou.

Neighbors of the Borels, interviewed on French television, described the youth as taciturn and said his room was plastered with posters of Hitler and neo-Nazi themes. Villagers with eyes red from crying sat on the ground, shaking their heads as they recalled traumatic scenes: An old woman shot as she walked her dog, an elderly man gunned down on his way to the cafe.

Two victims were killed while withdrawing money from a cash machine and another while playing boules, the Provencal bowling game, on the village square. Sintes said he watched the killer retrace his steps toward a man he had wounded in the stomach to shoot him again in the head, killing him. "He was very calm, very poised. He put the gun to his shoulder, held his gun steady, adjusted his aim and fired," Sintes said.

The killings began in the village of Sollies-Pont, about six miles north of Toulon. After bludgeoning his family, the boy walked to Cuers, about three miles north, where he began shooting at random in a parking lot, outside a bank and in the town square where villagers shopped. He killed seven people and wounded nine others before he shot himself, police said. One of the injured later died, bringing the total to eight. "He was shooting at anything that moved. He was firing everywhere," a woman living in Cuers told France-Info radio.

Police found the seven bodies of the victims scattered in streets throughout the village. Rescue teams prepared a morgue in the village gymnasium and an emergency medical post in the soccer stadium, and three helicopters flew to the town to transport the wounded to Toulon's hospital.

France has tight gun control laws for handguns, but not for hunting rifles, which can be purchased by anyone with a hunting license. Minors require parental permission. Yesterday's massacre was France's worst multiple killing since 1989, when a man shot 14 people, including his mother and sister. He was later acquitted due to insanity. Such incidents are rare in France. In all but one of the 13 multiple killings since 1989, the victims were family members of the killers.

French village in shock after teen's shooting spree kills 11

Sep 24, 1995

TOULON, France -- Fresh from murdering three relatives at home, a teen-ager walked to the next village Sunday and calmly opened fire on a quiet town square, killing nine more people before turning the gun on himself.

The murder-suicide in southern France was the country's worst multiple killing since 1989.

"It was like he was hunting birds," said Guy Sintes, the owner of a cafe on the square in Cuers, a sunny village near the Mediterranean port of Toulon.

Eight other people were wounded in the half-hour morning shooting rampage, three of them seriously, police said on customary anonymity. The victims' ages ranged from 17 to 75.

Television footage from the scene showed sidewalks and a car spattered with blood and a bullet hole through a shop window.

"The people are devastated, totally traumatized. The village is in shock," said Cuers Mayor Guy Gigou.

The boy was identified as Eric Borel, 16, but the impetus for the killings was unclear. His father died recently of cancer. Neighbors of his family, interviewed on French television, described him as taciturn and said his room was plastered with posters of Hitler and neo-Nazi themes.

Villagers with eyes red from crying sat on the ground, shaking their heads as they recalled traumatic scenes: An old woman shot as she walked her dog, an elderly man gunned down on his way to the cafe.

Two victims were killed while withdrawing money from a cash machine and another while playing boules, the Provencal bowling game, on the village square.

Sintes said he watched the killer retrace his steps toward a man he had wounded in the stomach to shoot him again in the head, killing him.

"He was very calm, very poised. He put the gun to his shoulder, held his gun steady, adjusted his aim and fired," Sintes said.

The killings began in the village of Sollies-Pont, about six miles north of Toulon. There, the 16-year-old boy used a hammer and baseball bat to kill his mother, stepfather and half-brother, according to police, who had initially identified two of the dead as the boy's father and brother.

The boy then walked to Cuers, about three miles north, where he began shooting at random in a parking lot, outside a bank and in the town square where villagers shopped.

"He was shooting at anything that moved. He was firing everywhere," a woman living in Cuers told France-Info radio.

Another witness from the village said the boy did not appear agitated.

"I saw him go past my shop with his rifle, at around 8 this morning. He was walking calmly, he wasn't in a hurry," said Frederic Bares, who runs a newsstand in the village.

"At first I thought he was a hunter. He was about 25 meters from my place when I saw him shoot a passerby, a shopkeeper who I think was hit in the head," Bares said on French radio.

As he ran to call the police, he heard other shots, he said.

Police found the seven bodies of the victims scattered in streets throughout the village.

Rescue teams prepared a morgue in the village gymnasium and an emergency medical post in the soccer stadium, and three helicopters flew to the town to transport the wounded to Toulon's hospital.

France has tight gun control laws for handguns, but not for hunting rifles, which can be purchased by anyone with a hunting license. Minors require parental permission.

Sunday's massacre was France's worst multiple killing since 1989, when a man shot 14 people, including his mother and sister. He was later acquitted due to insanity.

Such incidents are rare in France. In all but one of the 13 multiple killings since 1989, the victims were family members of the killers.

Teen's murderous rampage stuns France

The Phoenix Gazette

September 25, 1995

A 13th victim died today from a teenager's murderous rampage, as authorities tried to piece together why the boy went berserk before turning his rifle on himself.

The weekend murder-suicide in southern France was the country's worst multiple killing since 1989.

'It was like he was hunting birds': Teen kills 12, himself

French boy's mom, 2 other relatives were 1st victims

The Arizona Republic

September 25, 1995

Fresh from murdering three relatives at home, a teen walked to the next village Sunday and opened fire on a quiet square, killing nine additional people before turning the gun on himself.

French lad kills 12, then self

The Commercial Appeal

September 25, 1995

Fresh from killing three relatives at home, a teenager walked to the next village Sunday and calmly opened fire on a quiet town square, killing nine more people before committing suicide.

"It was like he was hunting birds," said Guy Sintes, the owner of a cafe on the square in Cuers, near the Mediterranean port of Toulon. Television footage from the scene showed sidewalks and a car spattered with blood.

The boy was identified as Eric Borel, 16.

French teen-age gunman was neo-nazi fanatic

The News and Observer

September 25, 1995

CUERS, France - A teen-ager who massacred 13 people and committed suicide in a weekend rampage in a sleepy town in southern France was apparently a neo-Nazi fanatic, police said Monday. Sixteen-year-old Eric Borel, whose killing spree shocked the nation, had pinned a Nazi swastika on his bedroom door and had pictures of Adolf Hitler and neo-Nazi literature.

He bludgeoned his mother and two other members of his family to death Saturday and the next day stalked calmly through Cuers, killing and wounding at random with a 22-calibre rifle before turning the gun on himself. Eight people died outright and two more died later in the hospital, including a teen-ager who attended the same school as Borel. Seven others were wounded.

"The carnage of the crazy teen-ager," cried the headline of the popular daily France-Soir, which carried a front-page color picture of a body half covered with a blood-soaked sheet.

"This angel of death's slow walk through a sleepy village gives the killings a potency of horror that no thriller writer has yet come up with," it said in an editorial.

The day before his rampage Borel had battered his mother, stepfather and 11-year-old half-brother to death with a hammer and a baseball bat in the nearby village of Sollies-Pont. In Cuers, north of the Mediterranean port town of Toulon, he fired at passers-by. Witnesses said he had coolly reloaded his rifle between shots and at one stage turned around to finish off a man he had wounded in the leg. Residents of the town, in a wine-growing area where grape picking was just getting under way, were in a state of shock and local authorities said they were arranging medical help for many who had been traumatized by the massacre.

"It's like a bad film, I can hardly believe it," said one resident in the square, where people lined up to sign letters of condolence to the victims' families.

Neighbors of the family in Sollies-Pont described Borel as a quiet, inhibited boy who had no friends and never acknowleged people when they greeted him. His father had died recently. One of Borel's school colleagues told TF1 television that he had heard him say recently: "I am going to kill myself. I am sick and tired of it all."

Guy Guigou, mayor of Cuers, said investigators had found pictures of Hitler, neo-Nazi books and brochures in his room. France-Soir said posters proclaiming the glory of Hitler's Third Reich were also discovered. Nearly always dressed in black, the teen-ager had a strong interest in firearms, the military and paramilitary and had apparently hoped to join the army.

13th death cited in french attack

The Boston Globe

September 26, 1995

CUERS, France -- The 13th victim of a teen-ager's rampage died in a hospital yesterday. Eric Borel, 16, turned a gun on his family and then on victims in a town square before killing himself Sunday. Rodolphe Incorvailla, 59, died yesterday of a bullet wound to the head.

Killing spree by teen claims 13th in France

Contra Costa Times

September 26, 1995

CUERS, France - The 13th victim of a teen-ager's murderous weekend rampage died in a hospital Monday, while authorities in southern France tried to determine what caused him to go on a killing spree.

Eric Borel turned a gun on his family and then on an apparently random series of victims in a town square before killing himself Sunday. Witnesses said the 16-year-old was so cool-headed they thought he was hunting pigeons.

No motive uncovered in french murder spree

The Record, Hackensack, N.J.

September 27, 1995

Authorities said Tuesday they may never know why a 16-year-old boy killed 13 people -- including his mother and half-brother -- before turning a gun on himself.

Police so far have been unable to confirm various theories about what sparked Eric Borel's murderous rampage last weekend in this village in southern France.