France's oldest female detainee, 79, goes on trial for in-law's grisly murder

France's oldest female detainee has gone on trial for murder at a court in Versailles, in a cold case centring on a dismembered body found 31 years ago.

Marie-Thérèse Garcia, 79, is charged with the kidnap and murder of her former sister-in-law Corinne Di Dio.

Di Dio went missing in June 1995 when she was 37. Days later, a metal trunk bound with a metal chain was discovered floating in the River Seine to the west of Paris.

Inside was the dismembered corpse of a woman – without head and hands. Only in 1997 was the body identified as Di Dio's, while the missing body parts have never been found.

Garcia early on came under suspicion, but twice the case was closed for lack of evidence.

Recently, though, DNA technology gave police a breakthrough. Two hairs found inside the metal trunk were found to belong either to the defendant or to another woman in her matrilineal descent.

In 2023, Garcia was put in prison to await trial. Repeated pleas for conditional release on grounds of age and ill health have been turned down.

Dubbed Ma Dalton by the French press – after the redoubtable grandmother of the Lucky Luke comic strip – Garcia protests her innocence, telling Le Parisien newspaper recently that the case against her was "built on sand".