Here is what became of the Villemin couple, Bernard Laroche’s wife and even Judge Lambert in the Grégory affair.
They were the protagonists of the Grégory Villemin affair, a four-year-old child whose body was found lifeless in Vologne, in Docelles (Vosges), on October 16, 1984. Here is what became of them, 40 years later late.
Jean-Marie and Christine Villemin, parents of Grégory
The Villemin couple moved to the Paris region after the release of Jean-Marie, imprisoned after the assassination of his cousin Bernard Laroche, whom he believed to be Grégory’s murderer. They have three children and are grandparents.
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“They have other children, adults, teachers and with children,” one of their lawyers, François Saint-Pierre, told AFP. “They have worked, led their lives, but are extremely concerned about their anonymity.”
They have not appeared in the media since a television appearance in 1994.
Jean-Marie Villemin, 66, is retired. In 1984, he was a foreman in the factory of an automobile subcontractor. At his trial in 1993, he presented himself as a laboratory technician. Upon his release from prison, his company agreed to employ him on another site, in the Paris suburbs, where the couple moved into an HLM, with only a mattress on the floor.
Christine Villemin, 64, still works in Paris. At the start of the affair, she was referred to as a possible “raven” by graphologists. She was indicted and briefly imprisoned in the summer of 1985, before being exonerated.
Jean-Marie Villemin has just written the preface to a graphic novel, “Grégory” (Les Arènes), which discusses the affair through the prism of his trial in 1993. He tells how the couple “suffered from the media coverage ” of this “tragedy”.
Husband and wife have “rebuilt” themselves far from the Vosges and are “happy parents and grandparents”, Laurent Beccaria, boss of the publishing house Les Arènes, told AFP. “They are a normal family.”
Marie-Ange, wife of Bernard Laroche
“Marie-Ange Laroche is doing very badly. Since March 29, 1985, the date of the assassination of Bernard Laroche, she has never been able to mourn, since at regular intervals, there is a reopening (of the investigation ) so-called decisive and who points the finger at her husband as being the possible culprit”, her lawyer, Gérard Welzer, told AFP.
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Aged 67, she still lives in the Vologne valley, where she worked in a public establishment. Ms. Laroche declared in 2017 that her life was “messed up” after being “dragged through the mud, destroyed, dirtied”. She has four children, including two from Bernard Laroche.
Murielle Bolle, little sister of Marie-Ange Laroche
Murielle Bolle played a central role in this affair, initially recounting having been at Bernard Laroche’s side during Grégory’s kidnapping, before retracting. Since then, she has continued to proclaim her brother-in-law’s innocence.
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She was indicted in 2017 for “kidnapping followed by death” and imprisoned for 38 days. But this indictment was invalidated for procedural defects the following year. Aged 55, she still lives in the Vosges. She had three boys and is a grandmother. She published “Breaking the Silence” in 2018, to tell her story.
Judge Jean-Michel Lambert
Nicknamed “the little judge”, Jean-Michel Lambert was 32 years old when he became the first magistrate responsible for investigating the case. The only investigating judge in Epinal, it was his first position. Accused of botching the investigation, he committed suicide on July 11, 2017, at the age of 65. He wrote 11 books, including one called “How Many Injustices Am I Guilty of”, in which he discussed “the complexity of the work of justice”.
Gendarmerie Captain Etienne Sesmat
The first investigator to intervene in the case, Captain Etienne Sesmat left the gendarmerie in 2006 “to be freed” from his duty of reserve. The same year he published a book, “The two Grégory affairs”, republished in an expanded version to mark the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the affair.
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After 12 years as safety director of the Marseille Transport Authority, he retired in 2018. At 70, he is currently a municipal councilor, in particular in charge of security, in Collioure (Pyrénées-Orientales), and gives regularly lectures on the Grégory affair.
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