Nearly 10 years after the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, her parents, Georges and Marguerite Bouniol, have released an open letter to her killer, writes Lara Marlowein Paris.
Ms Toscan du Plantier's battered body was discovered in a laneway close to her holiday home in Toormore, near Schull in west Cork, on the morning of December 23rd, 1996.
The dead woman's presence is strongly felt in the Paris apartment where she grew up. Photographs of Sophie are in every room. Her grown son, Pierre-Louis, hasn't the heart to remove her books from her childhood bedroom.
Her parents will attend an anniversary Mass for Ms Toscan du Plantier, with her aunt, Marie Madeline Opalka, on December 17th in Goleen.
Open letter to our daughter's killer
You were the last person she saw; you, her killer. A look of terror, and probably pleading, in her eyes.
She tried to escape from you. She ran through the field, bleeding, her hands and her arms broken. She screamed for help, knowing that no one would hear her, her cries drowned out in the wailing wind.
You caught up with her on the path to her house. She was there, lying on the ground, knowing she was going to die. She saw you threatening her with a hard object, probably a stone, which would turn her beautiful face into a dreadful pulp.
Why? And yet, she believed in friendship, in the Ireland she loved, where she owned the house she had dreamed of. She found there the calm she needed for her work. She was always touched by the kindness of Irish people. When you murder someone, it's the family you kill. At first, one doesn't understand. Then the pain comes. Then despair, and an unbearable absence.
And today you live in peace, free, without regrets. There's an arrogant, contemptuous look in your eyes, the look of a predator looking forward to his next victim. Your whole life has been one of cowardice and perversity.
This Ireland which Sophie taught us to love, and which we love; this Ireland - we want to know how can it accept that such a heinous crime go unpunished.
Georges and Marguerite Bouniol