the essential
40 years to the day after the kidnapping and murder of little Grégory Villemin, the perpetrator of the crime remains unidentified. A look back at the latest developments in this extraordinary affair.
The mystery still remains, 40 years later. On October 16, 1984, Grégory Villemin, 4 years old, was found bound hand and foot in the Vologne, a river in the Vosges department. After four decades of investigation and legal twists and turns in a case that fascinated the French and made headlines in the press, his murder remains unsolved. The recent additional expertise ordered by the courts could nevertheless lead to new developments in the investigation, as has already been the case in recent years.
March 21, 2024, new analyzes ordered
In March 2023, justice ordered additional expertise in DNA and voice recognition, to take advantage of scientific progress, at the request of the Villemin couple, parents of the victim. DNA comparisons will be made with that of Michel Villemin, the boy’s uncle, and several members of the extended family, according to a lawyer for the parents. A voice biometrics feasibility study is to reanalyze the raven recordings.
Also read:
Grégory affair: the investigation relaunched, new acts ordered by the Dijon Court of Appeal
March 14, 2024, the shocking words of a police officer
This new twist came only a few days after the shocking revelations made by François Daoust, former director of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie. The latter declared that the identity of the child’s killer was known but that he had not been charged due to a “procedural error”.
Also read:
Grégory affair: “We know what happened”… according to a former gendarme, the identity of the killer is known
October 2023, a crow identified
In October 2023, one of the authors of the anonymous letters received by the Villemin family after the child’s disappearance was identified by the courts using DNA traces. A development in the investigation made possible due to the new DNA analyzes requested by the Villemin couple and which the courts had accepted at the beginning of 2021.
This new development concerned a letter dated July 24, 1985 addressed to Monique and Albert Villemin, the victim’s grandparents. “I will make you (sic) your skin again to the Villemain family […] Next victim, Monique”, then wrote the author of this missive whose genetic fingerprint was identified. The analysis had made it possible to identify a woman already known to the justice system for acts of fraud. This Guadeloupean, based in Paris, at the time of sending the letter, admitted to being the author, but had nothing to do with the affair.
Also read:
Affair of little Grégory: 39 years later, one of the crows identified using DNA
January 16, 2020, Murielle Bolle’s custody is invalidated
At the beginning of 2020, Murielle Bolle’s custody in 1984 was invalidated by the courts. Then aged 15, she had not benefited from the support rights due to minors. Her statements at the time before the gendarmes, then before Judge Lambert, when she accused her brother-in-law Bernard Laroche, are however kept in the file.
July 11, 2017, suicide of Jean-Michel Lambert
A few days after a new twist in the case and the indictment of three suspects, the first investigating judge in the case, Jean-Michel Lambert, 65, ended his life.
June 2017, indictment of Marcel and Jacqueline Jacob and Murielle Bolle
Marcel and Jacqueline Jacob, Grégory’s great-uncle and great-aunt, suspected of being the “crows”, are indicted for “kidnapping and sequestration followed by death”. They are part of the “clan (of Bernard) Laroche”, the first suspect in the case, killed in 1985 by the child’s father, his cousin. On the 20th, the couple was released, but remained under judicial supervision. “Several people contributed to the crime,” said the attorney general, referring to a couple whose man carried out surveillance in the days preceding it.
Murielle Bolle, sister-in-law of Bernard Laroche whom she denounced in 1984 before retracting, was also indicted on June 29 for “kidnapping followed by death”. She was released on August 4, under judicial supervision.
On May 16, 2018, these three indictments were canceled for procedural defects.
