Iceland<\/a> apparently to carry out a suicide pact. When Ming Ting Mancel was first arrested, she claimed she had killed her husband and daughter, which she now denies, saying her husband had stabbed them both. <\/p>\nThe court heard testimony from Vikki Fitzpatrick, a HR director from Ireland who appeared by video-link. Fitzpatrick\u2019s company had recruited Catherine Mancel to work for its client, Airbnb. Catherine worked as a sales executive for Airbnb for approximately four months from January 2025, Fitzpatrick said. <\/p>\n
Catherine apparently had good working relationships with her colleagues and was part of a six-member French-speaking team who all worked in an open-plan office. <\/p>\n
Catherine requested time off from June 6th to 13th to go to Iceland. She was asked to work remotely for two of those days, but did not turn up for work as planned. Fitzpatrick told the court that Catherine left her work laptop on her desk. She also left her company badges behind. Catherine also gave presents to some members of her team before leaving Dublin. <\/p>\n
The court also heard from Emeric Mancel\u2019s sister, Erica Mancel, who testified via video from France. <\/p>\n
She said that from her point of view as a working woman, the family did not live a normal life, and that it was almost like they lived in the 1960s. She said they were always together, and that Emeric decided everything. <\/p>\n
Emeric ran everything in the household, she said, comparing him to her father, whom she said had been similarly controlling. She said her brother was very authoritarian and that he made all the decisions for his wife and daughter, who were both submissive. \u201cWhen I saw them, it was always Emeric who spoke.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that at the start of June last year, Emeric had sent her an email in which he seemed very depressed, due to both his kidney disease and being accused of stealing the family inheritance by his other sister. He told Erica that the family were going on holiday and wrote that \u201cwe are going to disappear\u201d. At the end, he had written \u201cau revoir\u201d, and she understood that they were going to kill themselves. She said he had not wanted to leave his intellectually challenged daughter and his wife to face his sister\u2019s accusations.<\/p>\n
Erica considered that it was Emeric who organised everything from Dublin. She also mentioned that he did not trust many people. Emeric also sent her a family will from Iceland. <\/p>\n
Speaking of her niece Catherine, Erica described her as having a slight intellectual delay due to a brain abnormality she was born with. Catherine was very close to her parents, her aunt said, and they protected her a lot. <\/p>\n
She said that, growing up, Catherine was slower than other children, and that she had not had a normal intellectual level, but that by the end of her teenage years had a good intellectual level, thanks to the support of her brother and sister-in-law. She also said she thought Catherine would have had big difficulties living alone. <\/p>\n
Erica said she was not close to her sister-in-law, and that she hardly ever saw Ming and Catherine when they had all lived in New Caledonia, and that she last saw Catherine in 2017. Erica said she only saw her brother a few times after 2001, as she had become estranged from her family after they rejected her for marrying a divorced man. She and her brother became close again after their mother died in 2020. <\/p>\n
She met Emeric once more, alone, in Dublin in 2024. She told the court that Emeric had said during this conversation that he was very proud of Catherine because she had found a job, and for her, that was a big success. He himself was in very bad health due to his kidney problems. <\/p>\n
Erica was also asked to explain a problem with her brother\u2019s right hand. She answered that he had been badly burned as a baby and had not regained the use of the hand, despite an operation. He only used his left hand since. <\/p>\n
The trial continues for a fifth and final day next Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irish human resources manager contacted Icelandic police last June after Catherine Mancel didn\u2019t turn up to work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-517634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-iceland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}