She Murdered The Man Who Raped Her, And Now She’s Facing Life In Prison

“I took the gun. There was a loud noise, the flash, the smell. I got out of the car, opened the door, he fell. I thought only of saving myself because I was sure he was going to kill me,” Valérie Bacot told Le Parisien before her June 21, 2021 murder trial, which could land her in prison for the rest of her life. Bacot stands accused of murder after she shot and killed the serial rapist, who was her abusive stepfather turned husband.

Bacot shot her long-time rapist, Daniel Polette, in the back of his neck on March 13, 2016, killing him. According to the victim, he had been abusing her since she was a fourteen-year-old girl, grooming her for years of rape and incestual abuse. Her stepfather-turned-husband also sold her body to family friends, where she was raped by these men in the family van. He had raped her repeatedly since she was a twelve-year-old girl.

After killing her rapist, Bacot had to tell her children, who were born of rape. She told her children that she had killed the monster who was ruining her life – who happened to be the father of these children. She recruited her children to help bury the rapist’s body in the woods. She dug a shallow grave and covered it with dirt.

“The only thing I thought about was putting dirt on it,” she said. “Because I was afraid he would come out and kill us.”

Eventually, Polette’s body was found after a family member went searching for him. They found that he had been hastily buried and soon cast blame upon his rape victim. Bacot was arrested and charged with murder and now faces an uphill battle in court to defend her freedom.

However, 400,000 people have signed a petition in support of Bacot, given that she murdered her rapist and was only acting out after years and years of abuse. The petition is going to the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, asking him to issue Bacot a pardon for her crimes, given that she was getting revenge on a serial rapist. Bacot was forty years old when she was arrested for killing her stepfather-turned-husband.

Prior to killing her abuser, Bacot learned that he was grooming their fourteen-year-old daughter for sexual abuse. That was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. She had tried to kill the man by poisoning him with sleeping pills but was unsuccessful in her attempt, which forced her to turn to the firearm to finish what she started.

Nevertheless, across Europe, male abusers are extremely dangerous. On average, one woman gets murdered every three days by a male partner.

After her case came to national attention, Bacot’s lawyers told The Daily Beast that they plan on “withdrawing from the media” as they put all of their focus and attention into their client’s defense. They added, “We will neither give interviews nor make any statements during the several weeks to come.”

A spokesperson for the support group sponsoring the petition said, “Even though she committed murder by killing her torturer, and taking into account the 25 years of suffering she suffered and endured in general indifference, it is her freedom that we ask for.”

What do you think about this woman killing her serial rapist?