Albert Foulcher

Background

Albert Foulcher was described as a former insurance agent and a gun enthusiast. He was also described as a fitness fanatic and self-made business man. He had been on the run after murdering two policemen and two other men near Narbonne.

Foulcher was on the run after murdering two policemen and two other men near Narbonne more than a week before January 17, 2001. He had been sentenced to life, in his absence, for a 1993 murder. He had always denied responsibility for the 1993 killing of André Meffray, the man from whom he bought his insurance business. Forensic scientists matched one of the guns in Foulcher’s arsenal to the bullets in the body of André Meffray.

Foulcher had been freed on bail in 1996 after an appeal court ruled that his long pre-trial detention violated the European Convention on Human Rights. He decided not to attend his trial for the earlier murder, and he failed to turn up for his trial.

Police said they had provided armed guards for two lawyers involved in the murderer's trial: his defence lawyer, Jacques Martin, and an unnamed female lawyer who was the former wife of the investigating magistrate judge who led the inquiries into the original murder.

The offence

Foulcher murdered two policemen in Narbonne after being called to what appeared to be a domestic dispute. When police arrived, he turned the weapon on them before shooting Pascal Herrero, one of the people who gave evidence at his trial.

Foulcher also committed two suspected revenge murders earlier in the day. Less than an hour later, he murdered Maurice Michaud, a former colleague who had also testified against him last year. Foulcher escaped in Maurice Michaud’s Mercedes.

Foulcher was described as having shot and killed two policemen and committed two suspected revenge murders earlier in the day. There were fears that he might be planning further revenge killings.

Investigation

The hunt involved hundreds of gendarmes and police and included two helicopters. Foulcher was believed to be driving a stolen Mercedes and armed with at least one semi-automatic weapon. His car was reported to have been spotted by police on several occasions but he still managed to elude pursuers.

After Foulcher turned up at the home of Pascal Herrero, one of the policemen died instantly and the other was shot in the head and died before he reached hospital.

After the murder of Maurice Michaud, Foulcher burst through a police barricade between Narbonne and Beziers before trying to flee to the east on the A9 Barcelona to Marseilles motorway. Shots were exchanged with gendarmes at another barricade before Foulcher did a U-turn at a toll station near Némes and escaped in the direction from which he had come. There were several reported sightings of the car last night in the Némes and Montpellier area.

Arrest

Foulcher was cornered in the council flat of a girlfriend, 20 miles from Narbonne, as police closed in. Seventy officers besieged the block. Residents were evacuated after police were first beaten back by a burst of automatic fire through the door.

Trial

Foulcher had been convicted in April for the murder of a colleague eight years before. He was convicted of the murder in 1993, at Pailhés near Montpellier, of another insurance agent—the man from whom he had bought a business in 1984. He was found guilty in his absence and given a life sentence.

Two men murdered by Foulcher, in separate attacks, were not witnesses at his trial last year, as police had said earlier.

Sentencing

Foulcher had been sentenced to life, in his absence, for a 1993 murder.

Outcome

Albert Foulcher committed suicide by shooting himself as police closed in on a block of flats in Béziers on January 17, 2001. After police finally stormed the flat after eight hours, Foulcher was lying dead under a bed.

Aftermath

The motives for the last week’s murders remained obscure.

Police said the killing of the two policemen in the Narbonne area brought the number of policemen shot dead in France in the past three weeks to four. One of these was killed by one of his own colleagues by mistake at a roadblock.

Other details

Albert Foulcher was 50 when described as having shot himself dead on January 17, 2001, and was also described as 49 in connection with events on January 9, 2001.