Fabienne Kabou

Fabienne Kabou was born into a wealthy Catholic family in Dakar on 14 June 1977.[1][2] Her father worked as a translator for the United Nations, her mother as a secretary.[2] Kabou was a good student and apparently scored 130 on IQ tests.[3] In 1995, she moved to France to study architecture and then philosophy, and was writing a thesis on Wittgenstein.[3][4] She met a sculptor 30 years her senior named Michel Lafon with whom she became romantically involved, and she terminated two pregnancies while they were together.[3] When she became pregnant a third time, she hid the fact from Lafon before giving birth to the child alone in their apartment in August 2012; the birth of the child, named Adélaïde ("Ada"), was not legally registered and was not known about outside of the household, even to Kabou's mother.[3][5] Kabou retreated from her academic and social life to raise Adélaïde; Lafon was apparently not interested in the child.[3][4] Experiencing hallucinations and other conditions, Kabou spent €40,000 euros seeking help from "witchdoctors and healers" before the murder.[6]

On 19 November 2013, Kabou took Adélaïde by train to the coastal town of Berck-sur-Mer, where she checked into a hotel room.[3] She had told Lafon that she was taking the child to Senegal to live with her mother.[4] After dusk she walked on the beach with Adélaïde in a stroller and breastfed her, and later claimed to have felt an inexplicable urge to abandon the child.[3][5] She recalled, "I put an end to her life because it was easier that way. It was as if I felt carried along, I just couldn't say stop."[7] She laid her almost asleep daughter down in the tide, hugged her for some minutes while asking for forgiveness, and then ran from the scene.[1][5] Fishermen discovered the child's drowned body on the shore the next morning.[1] Kabou returned to Paris that day.[3]

The authorities arrested Kabou in Paris a few days after the incident; closed-circuit television had captured her trip.[4][6] Kabou readily admitted to having planned to drown Adélaïde.[8]

A trial for premeditated murder began in Saint-Omer on 20 June 2016 with a possibility of life imprisonment.[3][8] Psychiatrists determined that Kabou was fit to stand trial despite suffering from "paranoid delirium".[4] Kabou claimed that "evil forces" and "witchcraft" had inspired her to commit the act.[3][4] A psychologist said that Senegalese traditions of witchcraft had "radically altered her view of the world", though the prosecution argued that this explanation was just a defense strategy.[6] Another psychologist suggested that postpartum depression had affected her mental state.[3] On 24 June 2016, Kabou was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to receive psychological treatment.[8]

Documentary filmmaker Alice Diop, who attended the trial, was inspired to write and direct a feature film based on the case.[9][10][11] The film, Saint Omer, premiered in 2022 at the Venice International Film Festival to positive reviews.[9] Guslagie Malanda, who played the role based on Kabou, found being in character so taxing that she had nightmares for a year, while Diop fainted on set when the shooting wrapped.[9][11]