The epilogue to this disturbing disappearance fell like a blade. Cédric Prizzon, 42, former rugby player and ex-police officer, had been wanted since March 20. This, after the simultaneous disappearance of his ex-partner, Audrey Cavalié, their 12-year-old son, as well as his current partner, Angela, and their 18-month-old baby.
The public prosecutor of Montpellier, Thierry Lescouarc’h, confirmed his arrest in Mêda, in the north-east of Portugal. If the teenager and the infant were recovered safe and sound by the local authorities, the two women did not survive. Their bodies were found lifeless. Which transformed this disappearance case into an alleged double feminicide.
A separation experienced as a judicial and digital “war”
The profile of Cédric Prizzon draws that of a man in open conflict with authority and his former partners. Stripped of his parental rights and convicted in the past for mutual violence with Audrey Cavalié, he led a real “cabal” on social networks.
On Facebook groups of angry fathers, he multiplied the videos and accusations of corruption against the Rodez court. In 2021, he had already kidnapped his son for two months in Spain before being located. This time, the planned flight abroad took a definitive and deadly turn. Leaving behind two bereaved families and two traumatized children.
The psychologist’s analysis: when separation becomes unbearable
To understand what can lead to such an extremity, Amélie Boukhobza, clinical psychologist, gives us her analysis of these profiles where violence takes precedence over reason.
“In certain violent profiles, separation can be experienced as an unbearable loss. A deep narcissistic wound, far beyond a simple story that ends“, she explains.
For these individuals, the other is not a free subject, but a possessed object. “As if the other didn’t have the right to leave. As if the other still belonged to us, even afterward. By this logic, the ex never really becomes an “ex.” She remains caught in the bond. A conflictual, obsessive bond.”
The paradox of violence: sparing children to better “erase” mothers
A question remains: why were the children spared when the two mothers were killed? According to Amélie Boukhobza, domestic violence follows a specific logic which does not always target offspring in the same way.
“Domestic violence does not necessarily spill over directly to them. She reaches them, obviously. But not always in the same way as the mother. Because the child can be seen as an extension of oneself. Like a link to preserve. Or as an issue of belonging” underlines the psychologist.
Conversely, the partner or ex-spouse concentrates all the hatred. “The partner can embody betrayal, abandonment, humiliation“Killing the mother would then amount to trying to “erase” what is beyond the man’s control.
Warning signals and control, a logic of persecution
The Prizzon affair highlights clinical mechanisms well known to specialists, where jealousy and the feeling of persecution dominate the functioning of the individual. Amélie Boukhobza evokes logics of control in the strict sense.
“Unbearable frustration. An overwhelming jealousy. A feeling of uncontrollable loss. And it can overwhelm the thought to the point of taking action.”
Often, warning signs exist well before the tragedy, but they are sometimes minimized by those around you or society. “What we often observe in these profiles, on the other hand, are upstream signals: tensions, control, repeated conflicts, difficulty letting go. Which, seen from the outside, may have gone unnoticed” concludes the expert.
The investigation will now have to precisely determine the circumstances of this double tragedy which leaves a community in shock.