In a harrowing moment at the Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon, France, 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot testified for the first time, recounting the moment in 2020 when authorities confronted her with images that unveiled a decade-long ordeal of sexual abuse. Allegedly orchestrated and documented by her husband, the abuse brought shocking revelations to light.

A new layer of suspicion has now emerged in the case after investigators discovered two images among the 20,000 photographs and videos Dominique Pelicot had recorded of his wife Gisele’s abuse, showing a much younger woman asleep in bed.

Initially, Caroline Darian, Gisele's daughter, didn’t recognise the person in the photos. The woman appeared pale, with dark circles under her eyes, and was shown sleeping with part of her body exposed. Though the sheets seemed familiar, Darian insisted she didn’t recognise herself, repeatedly telling the police, “No, it’s not me.”

It was only when the officer asked if she had a brown mole on her right cheek, like the woman in the photos, that Caroline Darian realised the disturbing truth that the woman was indeed herself, leading to further unsettling questions.

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“How could he have photographed me in the middle of the night without waking me? Did he also drug me? Worse still, did he abuse me?”

Dominique Pelicot's Shocking Confession

Gisele was married to Dominique Pelicot for 50 years, raising three children together. However, between 2011 and 2020, Dominique used the dating site Coco to invite numerous men to abuse his wife. Out of 83 potential suspects, 54 have been identified, with 50 currently on trial.

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Dominique Pelicot admitted to orchestrating the abuse known as the Mazan rapes, even calling himself a ‘rapist’ like the other defendants. Police found hard drives with hundreds of videos of his wife being assaulted, as well as photos of his daughter, Caroline, naked and asleep. Though Pelicot denies ever harming children, his wife Gisele acknowledged the troubling implications of these images in her testimony.