The words are strong, thoughtful. They are those of a man who has had too much time to think about his misfortune. “I took my cousin’s life, I will forever remain a murderer. I regret it so much. Revenge is not a solution, even if you are convinced that you are facing the man who kidnapped your son…”writes Jean-Marie Villemin in the preface to the graphic novel which is released this Thursday, October 3, 2024 (Gregory, published by Arènes). It was March 29, 1985: the latter had killed Bernard Laroche with a gunshot, murder for which he was sentenced to five years in prison, one of which was suspended, in December 1993.
The words of Grégory’s father – this 4-year-old boy, kidnapped and killed forty years ago, on October 16, 1984, in the Vosges – are rare. Now retired and aged 66, he stays away from microphones and cameras. His wife, Christine, 64, flees them even more. “She’s a big media burnout”he recalls. In addition to the death of her child, the former seamstress at the Vosges clothing factory had to face the unbearable accusation of infanticide. Between his indictment for the murder of his boy, on July 5, 1985, and the judgment of the Dijon Court of Appeal, on February 3, 1993, which exonerated him for “total absence of charges”, the infamy will have lasted eight years.
Read also: In his book on the Grégory affair, Pat Perna carries the voice of Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin
Two clans among journalists
Jean-Marie Villemin has not forgotten these years nor those who, according to him, contributed to fabricating the story of his wife’s guilt: the journalist Jean-Michel Bezzina and his wife, local correspondents for several national media; Commissioner Jacques Corazzi who led the investigation after the gendarmes’ withdrawal; and Gérard Welzer, Bernard Laroche’s lawyer. “It is their manipulations that have caused so much delay in the search for the truth”Jean-Marie Villemin remains convinced. He uses as proof a dinner, on November 8, 1984, between Gérard Welzer, Jean-Michel Bezzina and Jacques Corazzi that the former PJ cop had recounted in his book The secret of Vologne. “These three will pull in the same direction for different motivations”writes Corazzi, speaking of himself in the third person. However, the direction is to convince Judge Lambert and the public of Christine Villemin’s guilt.
From that moment on, among the journalists, “there are two clans. That of the pro-Laroche and the others, close to the Villemin couple”observes Patricia Tourancheau who republishes, in an expanded and still well-documented version, her book The complete story of the Grégory affair (Points editions).
To obtain information on the investigation targeting Grégory’s mother, “this went through the PJ who gave them to certain media, but not to others. And to have this information, we had to go in the direction of Christine Villemin’s guilt”remembers Me Thierry Moser, the couple’s historic lawyer.
Our podcast on the case: What if justice never found the murderers of Grégory Villemin?
“The only ones who never lied”
The words of Laurence Lacour have also become rare. In Lépanges-sur-Vologne, when she was 27 years old in 1984 and working as a correspondent for Europe 1she lost her illusions, a carefree attitude and a job that she ended up leaving. In the book she wrote a few years later, The pyre of the innocentshe dissects and analyzes all these journalistic excesses: a toy placed on Grégory’s grave for a better photo, microphones hidden in a cupboard… Without exonerating herself from her own contribution to this “tornado” media. “All the journalists had contributed to the corruption of the affair. To get an interview (Editor’s note from the Villemin couple)it was easier to push Laroche. We were unable to hold Jean-Marie’s arm”she exceptionally confided to Patricia Tourancheau.
In conducting 197 interviews for her book, she took care to verify everything that had been printed at the time: “80% of what we wrote was false or erroneous. And the only ones who had never lied were Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin. This reality haunted me for a long time”she confides.
“A journalist told me one day: You know, Master, what interests me is how long this kid will make me sell articles »does not lose anger, for his part, Mr. Thierry Moser.
“An invented story”
However, the unthinkable, in this extraordinary case, is not only due to the fact that there was a mistake in the suspect, that Justice went astray in exploiting testimony, however fragile they may be. No, in the case of Christine Villemin, the unthinkable lies in the fact that he “there was substitution of reality for the benefit of an invented story”that of the mother’s guilt, analyze Emmanuel and Mathias Roux in their book A taste for crime (Actes Sud editions).
“To defend his client, the lawyer will not have sought so much to exonerate him as to invent another culprit. For his part, the police officer first wanted to demonstrate the incompetence of the gendarmes rather than establishing the truth. As for most journalists, they will have put their skills less at the service of the most objective information than for their own benefit.write the two authors, associate professors of philosophy.
Could such a creation of a story, forty years later, still happen? In the age of social networks and continuous information, Patricia Tourancheau remains cautious: “I’m not saying it couldn’t happen again. » Before adding: “With current genetic expertise, today, the case would be resolved…”
