Thirty years since he said anything, or almost. Thirty years that he classifies, archives, writes, compares, rereads the misfortune of his life. We have already seen this in tragedies followed by endless procedures. A man erects a rampart made of thousands of documents and legal documents, in the hope that one day the truth will emerge. No one knows the Grégory affair file better than the child’s own father, Jean-Marie Villemin.
It has now been forty years, on October 16, 1984, that this little 4-year-old boy was thrown, alive but unconscious, into the Vologne, a river in the Vosges, his cap pulled down over his face, a cord around his neck, wrists and ankles. This murder horrifies the country, but no one foresees the legal and media disaster to come, for which his parents, Jean-Marie and Christine Villemin, will pay the price. Nobody, and especially not them. “I wonder how we survived”asks the father in the preface to a comic strip published Wednesday October 2, Gregory (Les Arènes, 144 pages, 25 euros).
After so many articles, reports, books, documentaries, shows, a film and even a Netflix series, why this album? For a long time, the idea had been tormenting Jean-Marie Villemin. Well before his fortieth birthday, he “took the lead” and asked his wife, a “great media burn”his opinion on such a project. “She left me free to carry it out, provided I was not involved in it”he writes. This preface also allows him to express his remorse, he who killed Bernard Laroche on March 29, 1985, convinced of his guilt: “I took my cousin’s life, I will forever remain a murderer. I regret it so much. » By this crazy gesture, he seriously compromised the manifestation of the truth. Is there any worse punishment?
Also read (1985) | Article reserved for our subscribers Bernard Laroche, murdered by Jean-Marie Villemin, had already been threatened by his murderer
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The Grégory affair, today, is the love story of a couple who resisted everything: the “crows”, hatred, jealousy, stupidity, persecution, lies, in prison. On the death of a child. It is also a story of friendships, of kindness, of reconstruction. The Villemins managed to overcome their misfortune and create a united family, without hiding anything about their ordeals from their three children, Julien, 39 years old, Emelyne, 34 years old, and Simon, 26 years old. The latter is named in memory of judge Maurice Simon, who started the investigation from scratch in 1987 and finally treated the Villemins with humanity. Emelyne, an associate professor of science, cheerfulness in person, married a normalien. “She was the only scholarship recipient in her preparatory class”notes the founder of the Arènes, Laurent Beccaria. Julien has a great situation in an optical franchise. The Villemin couple have three grandchildren.
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