French pensioner accused of 18 killings

A French pensioner has been arrested for a series of 18 killings across the country over more than 20 years.

Nicolas Panard, aged 68, was held yesterday in the Alsace city of Mulhouse, accused of the murders with another man subsequently jailed.

He is suspected of 11 killings in the Alsace region, four in the neighbouring region of Franche-Comte, and three near Paris. The earliest was in 1980.

According to the local L’Alsace newspaper, the two men targeted primarily gay victims and the arrests were the result of two years’ work by a police officer based in Montbeliard who had originally only been investigating a murder in 1991 in nearby Sochaux.

Using a crime database he discovered Mr Panard’s name in several unsolved murders, the paper reported.

He also discovered several common features. The victims had all been killed by blows to the head followed by multiple stabbings.

Each body was partly naked, but had its face covered.

Panard is said to be experienced on the gay scene and worked as a female impersonator in eastern France and Germany, the paper said.

During the 1980s, there was a spate of unsolved murders of homosexuals across the border from Mulhouse in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

Panard’s alleged accomplice is 43-year-old Slim Fezzani who is currently serving 20 years for the murder of an insurance agent.