“We are getting closer” to the truth: 40 years later, can the Grégory affair still bounce back?

Will science solve the “case of the century”? Forty years after the discovery of the body of Grégory Villemin, aged four, in the Vologne valley, in the heart of the Vosges, one of his parents’ lawyers, Me Marie-Christine Chastant Morand, spoke about this point this Sunday on LCI, estimating that “time is an ally” in this folder.

“It is not at the human level since people obviously age or disappear. But at the scientific level, yes, because the progress in science is there and I was going to say improving day by day,” declared the latter, specifying that her clients, Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin, “have this hope and are waiting for the results of expertise and science and the progress to come.”

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Since 1994, this never-resolved case has continued its course and is still under investigation, the last request for additional expertise dating back to last March. “What I can simply tell you on this subject is that it is the scientific aspect, in fact, which is called into question. And expertise has been ordered in DNA to allow cross-checking as far as possible and to broaden the research by doing parental DNA”clarified this Sunday Me Marie-Christine Chastant Morand, recalling the secrecy of the investigation.

“On the other hand, as we are fortunate in the file to have material and recordings under seal, we have requested, and this is in progress, a feasibility assessment to find out if, from these recordings of the Raven, it is possible to find his voiceprint in such a way as to be able to make comparisons with the voices of the time”, she continued, recalling that “Everyone has expressed a lot in this matter and at the INA in particular, in addition to the recordings in the file, expert opinions could be carried out.”

“Living people know a certain number of things”

While the thesis of a family conspiracy has regularly been mentioned in this case, Me Marie-Christine Chastant Morand corroborated this lead. “We know that the kidnapping of this child It was not the work of a vagabond who passed by there, at the top of the path, in front of this house, to kidnap Grégory. We know that it wasn’t a serial killer who was there either. We also have all this action of the crow who poisoned the family’s life. So really, yes, we feel that we are in a family story”, she detailed. Still on this subject, the lawyer for the Villemin spouses estimated that“it is obvious that living people know a number of things, it is almost certain that there are eyewitnesses living now who have not spoken.”

Returning to the expertise of additional information, Me Marie-Christine Chastant Morand mentioned the human track precisely, in addition to the scientific track. “40 years and they haven’t spoken, we are told, but you never know. We saw a recent case, I don’t want to cite it, where a witness came to say things that he had not never said at the assizes when the matter had already previously passed before the assizes”, she explained, believing that“We’re getting closer to the truth.”

“Know who was there and who did what”

Returning to the motivations of its clients, their counsel also indicated that“we are not at all in the spirit of revenge” but it’s good “a quest for truth which drives them and which they have never let go”. And to insist: “the real driving force behind Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin is knowing the truth, knowing who was there and who did what and what were the last moments of their little boy from the moment he was kidnapped while he was playing on a pile of sand with his little cars in front of the house. From that moment until he was taken out of the cold waters of the Vologne.

To conclude, she indicated that Grégory’s parents “trust justice and they have no preconceived ideas”, specifying that“They are extremely close to the file and really follow everything that is done, everything that happens.”