French farmer who tied elderly woman to a ladder and dismembered her while she was still alive is jailed for life

A French farmer who bound an elderly German woman to a ladder before sawing off her limbs while she was still alive has been sentenced to life in prison.

Yves Bureau was found guilty of t orturing and murdering Edith Muhr at his farmhouse in Verdon in the Dordogne region of France.

Bureau laughed and joked when macabre photos of Mrs Muhr's remains were shown on a large screen at his trial.

Killer: Yves Bureau severed Edith Muhr's limbs before beheading her at his farmhouse after she walked on to his land as she went to meet her husband

And the 58-year-old reportedly gave 27 different versions of events to officers investigating the killing of his victim.



The court heard that Mrs Muhr was an attractive woman who loved growing carrots before feeding them to donkeys she passed on frequent country walks.



On the day of the murder, she was walking from her home to meet her husband for lunch when she entered onto Bureau's land.

However when she failed to appear he raised the alarm.

Detectives established that Bureau had intercepted her and dragged her into a barn at his farm.

Despite her pleas, he attached her arms and legs to a ladder leaning against a wall next to an old tractor and began by cutting off her fingers one by one .

Using butcher’s knives and a meat cleaver Bureau then cut off her arms and legs.

Bureau later revealed under questioning that the victim was still alive when the defendant beheaded her with the cleaver.

Bureau then put Edith Muhr’s body parts in bags and dumped them in a nearby pond but later recovered them and left them in a field.



Police found the victim’s blood all over the walls and floor of the barn together with other body parts-those of an animal which Bureau had killed and cut up.

In a bid to establish Bureau’s motive for killing Edith Muhr, prosecutor Jean-Luc Gadaud told the court: ‘She was everything that he was not- wealthy,intelligent and liked. He was crippled by his indebtedness, shyness and his boring life.

‘She may have crossed his land. It was his territory and he wanted to show that he was the master of his land.

‘She was German. Perhaps it was a symbolic act of vengeance. His father was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944.’

He sentenced him to life imprisonment and told him he would serve at least 20 years.

