Claude Denniel, 63, remembers well this morning of May 29, 1978. His brother Noël, who returned to the family home a few months earlier after eight years in the army, was doing crosswords on the balcony flowered with geraniums. “I had a brand new Gitane bike. He said to me “your toe clips are touching the ground”, I replied “you idiot”, like two brothers bickering, and I never saw him again”.
The next morning, Noël, 24, was discovered dead in the mud near the new quay, on the ramparts side, by walkers in the early morning. According to the police investigation, the testimonies of Hennebontais, Noël, who lived with his family at the Abbaye de la Joie, crossed the stud farm around 3:30 p.m. to go to the town center of Hennebont, “in a bar that He knows Les Bruyères well, run by Mr. Jouet. He played tarot cards there with other young people. He was a great player. Then they went to Terrien’s, Marie-Lou’s, other bars. They would have left there and my brother would have returned to Bruyères, he banged on the door but the boss did not answer,” says Claude Denniel. We lose track of Christmas there.
Some Christmas friends don’t answer me, others tell me to forget. I feel like I’m disturbing.
Dismissal pronounced on November 15, 1978
The autopsy carried out on the young Hennebontais would indicate the absence of water in his lungs, ruling out death by drowning. Noël had 1.9 g/l of alcohol in his blood. “He didn’t sleep around, he was a tidy person who wasn’t known for party nights.” When the family wakes up, the rumor of an unidentified body discovered in Hennebont is already circulating. The mother of two boys, not seeing her eldest, immediately understands the drama that has played out. “We didn’t know but it could only be that.” Claude remembers the grooms’ wives, the neighbors who came to support the family while the father, a brigadier-in-chief of the stud farm, had gone to Le Mans with horses. Claude loses this brother he loves so much and flees, remaining prostrate in the woods. The affair caused a stir, the family was known in Hennebont and the basilica was packed for the funeral. Noël is buried without any light being shed on his death. She never will be. The case was dismissed on November 15, 1978. The close-knit family was broken by the tragedy. Claude and Noël’s mother will not recover, “she was always depressed after that”.
Claude has been obsessed for 46 years by what happened to his brother. Was it an accident? Was he killed? By whom? “No one has been able to put their hands on who was with my brother that night.” He retrieved the file from the departmental archives and discovered “errors”, approximations, missing pieces like his brother’s photos. He questioned Noël’s friends, regularly made appeals on Facebook but nothing concrete. “Some Christmas friends don’t answer me, others tell me to forget. I feel like I’m disturbing.” Almost half a century later, can the truth still emerge? “I want those who know to speak. There isn’t a day when I don’t think about it, confides Claude Denniel, in a sob. I will be able to mourn with the truth, I will be more peaceful.”
