Péchier Affair: Brilliant Anesthesiologist or Murderer, Who Is the Enigmatic Doctor Being Prosecuted for Poisoning?

He is accused of deliberately targeting patients aged 4 to 89, both to harm his colleagues and to demonstrate his skills as a resuscitator. These are very serious accusations that the 53-year-old doctor, who has no criminal record, has always denied, claiming conspiracy.

Isolated, exhausted, "financially drained," according to one of his lawyers, the fifty-year-old with the graying beard is now only a shadow of the "star anesthesiologist" he once described. Frédéric Péchier was born on January 22, 1972, in Angoulême, to an anesthesiologist father and a nurse mother. The eldest of four siblings, he had an uneventful childhood in a wealthy environment.

During his medical studies, this tall, dark-haired man with the physique of a rugby player met Nathalie, whom he married in 1999 and with whom he had three children. She became a private cardiologist. He practiced at the Besançon University Hospital and then joined the Saint-Vincent clinic, spending six months at the Franche-Comté polyclinic in 2009. It was in these two Besançon establishments that Frédéric Péchier was accused of poisoning patients for nearly ten years.

He was charged in March 2017 with seven premeditated poisonings, three at the Franche-Comté Polyclinic and four in Saint-Vincent.

Accusations that Dr. Péchier, the only practitioner present on these sites at the time of all these events, fiercely denies: "I am accused of heinous crimes that I did not commit," he defended himself from the opening of the investigation in 2017. In May 2019, he was indicted a second time for 17 new cases, then a third time in March 2023, for six additional cases.

The defense claims a miscarriage of justice. The accusation of the anesthesiologist is "an artificial construction of an ideal culprit," it maintains. Its lawyers, Randall Schwerdorffer and Lee Takhedmit, will argue for acquittal.

The doctor's family is convinced of his innocence: to his loved ones, he is a caring, fatherly, and helpful man, passionate about his work. His wife, from whom he separated in 2021, described to investigators a man with a heightened professional conscience, much sought after by his colleagues because of his skills.

During the investigation, colleagues painted a flattering image of the doctor, "a star of anesthesiologists," while others were much more measured, describing him as arrogant, smooth-talking, even manipulative. One colleague said he was "certain he was the best" and liked to "think he was Zorro."

According to the prosecution, Dr. Péchier allegedly attacked patients to harm colleagues with whom he was in conflict, polluting their IV bags. He then intervened to rescue them, demonstrating his resuscitation skills. "Frédéric Péchier was the first responder when a cardiac arrest occurred," "he always had the solution," emphasized Étienne Manteaux, the prosecutor who had requested his referral to the Assize Court in May 2024. According to the magistrate, "he had created a truly charismatic character as a savior."

Psychological and psychiatric assessments did not reveal any pathology or personality disorder. They described an intelligent man, without any particular trauma in his past, at most having suffered from the absence of a father who was preoccupied with his work.

A psycho-criminological analysis carried out in 2019, heavily criticized by the defense, however, points to "a controlling personality", "perverse traits" and "elements of a narcissistic personality".

The investigation alleges he cheated during a golf competition in 2011, as well as insurance fraud. "I have the feeling he's quite skilled, very manipulative, and very self-centered," said Frédéric Berna, lawyer for many of the civil parties. "He's really someone who doesn't accept contradiction and constantly tries to impose his opinion by force."