A British pensioner’s dream retirement in a small French village ended in her brutal murder after she was strangled and brutally beaten to death by a psychotic neighbor, a court heard.
Susan Higginbotham, 67, was found dead in September 2021 in her home in Esclottes, a village of only 150 inhabitants about 35 kilometers east of Bordeaux.
She had been attacked by her psychotic neighbor, Hichame Bahloul, who has now been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The Lot-et-Garonne Criminal Court heard that Higginbotham had been asking Bahloul, 42, for duct tape before he exploded and attacked her.
He told the court he went to her home on the day of the attack with a “cord” which he used to strangle her, before punching and kicking her in the chest.
Susan Higginbotham, 67, was found dead in September 2021 in her home in Esclottes, a village of only 150 inhabitants about 56 kilometers east of Bordeaux.
Pictured: Mrs Higginbotham’s home in Esclottes
Before the attack, Bahloul had spent almost half his life under psychiatric care.
But at that time he had already been living with his parents for six months in the same town of Esclottes, in the southwest of the country.
The three-day trial helped understand why Bahloul had carried out the attack.
‘Is this a crime of interest? Replacement? Of opportunity? the prosecutor asked.
‘The need to attack others has been part of his life for years. He attacked many people during his various hospitalizations: patients or nursing staff.
“He enjoyed it,” the prosecutor added.
As he listened to the prosecutor from a plexiglass cell inside the courtroom, Bahloul gasped before standing up and banging his fists on the window, according to reports.
However, Bahloul himself admitted to attacking Mrs Higginbotham.
‘The story of the tape? It was an excuse to go to her house. I went back to her house with my cord and strangled her,’ she said, according to reports in France.
‘We fell, the rope fell. She broke. I grabbed my fists, punched her in the face, and kicked her in the chest to make sure she was dead.
Ms. Higginbotham was found by an acquaintance who came to check on her on the morning of September 14, 2021.
She was found dead in her home in Esclottes, on the border of the Lot-et-Garonne and Gironde departments.
After initial clues pointed to his death involving a third party, French police launched a major emergency response in the normally peaceful region.
Within hours, Bahloul was identified as a suspect. He was arrested on September 15, 2021 at 7:55 p.m., the court said.
An investigating officer said: “We carried out a first search, then the suspect takes investigators to the village, about a hundred meters from Susan Higginbotham’s house, where he hid the victim’s pink wallet.”
“He gives us the clothes he was wearing on the day of the incident, covered in blood.”
Lot-et-Garonne Criminal Court (pictured) heard Higginbotham had been asking Bahloul, 42, for duct tape before he snapped and attacked her.
During the trial, Bahloul said he attacked the British woman out of annoyance that she had repeatedly asked him for the duct tape.
The investigator said: ‘He goes to her house, strangles her and frees her. He returns home, grabs a piece of rope from the garden, which he cuts with a knife, but he doesn’t grab the gun for fear that she will scream.
“Susan Higginbotham would not have seen her attacker come back a second time, put the link around her neck before she fell to the ground.”
The investigator continued: ‘He said he knelt on her while she was on the ground, and punched and kicked her – more than fifteen times – while attacking her head.
‘Then (he) put (his) hand over his nose and mouth. “He told us that if she had still been breathing, he would have finished her,” they added.
According to reports in France, Bahloul’s own defense lawyer, Mr. Verdier, requested that his client be given the maximum sentence.
“I’m here to defend my client’s wishes,” Verdier said. ‘The latter coincides with the report of the psychologist expert: it is necessary that he remain in prison.
“That is why I ask for the maximum sentence imposed.”
Reports suggest Bahloul was unhappy to return to his family and carried out the attack as a way to escape his life at home.
The court also heard from a woman called Sharon, a friend of Higginbotham, who traveled from the UK to give details about the victim’s character.
Pictured: A view of Esclottes, south-west France, where Ms Higginbotham was murdered in 2021.
Sharon said she hosted her friend for six months at her London flat in the 2000s, longer than the four weeks they had initially planned.
‘As soon as we met, we became very good friends. In 2005, she moved to Mansfield and, a few years later, she was me,” Sharon said.
‘Sue was a very nice person, she looked after people a lot and was very open. We spent a memorable vacation together. She had had a successful career, as a financial director and then as a company representative; she had worked very hard.’
He added: ‘She really wanted to be happy in France when she moved in 2016, and I think she was. She was living her dream. She was fun. I miss her a lot.’