At 9pm on October 16, 1984, four-year-old Grégory Villemin was found drowned in the Vologne River near Docelles in eastern France. A wool hat had been pulled down over his face and his hands and feet had been bound with a rope. The next day, his family received a letter reading, “I have taken vengeance,” but the killer has yet to be identified.
Grégory was born on August 24, 1980 to Jean-Marie Villemin and Christine Villemin. On the outside, they appeared to be a normal family. But things were not quite what they seemed. It seemed Jean-Marie had offended someone, though he didn’t know who, or how. In September 1981, he began receiving phone calls and anonymous letters from a man threatening revenge.
Though neither he, nor his family, knew what the offense could be, they took the communications seriously. After all, the caller/letter writer indicated he possessed detailed, intimate knowledge of the extended Villemin family. He referred to Jean-Marie as “little boss.”
At one point, every member of the family had received a call – aunts, uncles, cousins. With the knowledge the caller had of the family, they all knew it had to be one of them. But who?
Jean-Marie received threats of bodily harm, but he played it cool. When the caller told him he was going to do something to his house, Jean-Marie told him to go ahead, he could even burn it down if he wanted. Then the caller threatened his wife, told him she was going to get hurt, that he had laid a trap and would sexually assault her. Christine didn’t leave the house.
Then Jean-Marie received a call telling him not to let his son, Grégory, spend so much time outside or, “one day you will find him dead down there.” Jean-Marie, who had been calm and collected thus far, snapped and threatened to kill him if he hurt his son.
Then, in March 1983, they received a letter, written in chunky block-lettering.
“Villemin family, I will murder you. If you don’t comply, I will make good on the threat I made to the boss about him and his little family. It’s your choice.
Life or Death”
Then the caller went silent. They didn’t hear from him again for a year and a half. They let their guard down.
On October 16, 1984, Christine let Grégory play outside while she was inside the home. Then the unthinkable happened. Grégory was gone. She reported him missing just after 5pm, and at 5:30pm, Grégory’s uncle Michel Villemin informed the family that he had just received a phone call.
The caller told him that the boy had been taken and thrown into the Vologne River. At 9pm, 7km from the family home in Lépanges-sur-Vologne, the boy’s body was discovered. A wool hat had been pulled down over his face and his hands and feet were bound with a rope that also looped around his neck.
Investigators noted the calm look on his face when they removed the hat. He showed no signs of trauma, his clothes intact, no sign of a struggle.
The next day, the family received an anonymous letter addressed to Jean-Marie.
“I hope you die of grief, boss. Your money can’t give you back your son. Here is my revenge, you stupid bastard.”
A case that was quickly picked up by the media had the suspect named, “Le Corbeau” or “The Crow”, French slang for an anonymous letter-writer, a term made popular by the 1943 film, Le Corbeau.
Police immediately began looking for the killer. The first thing they looked at was the anonymous calls. Surprisingly, there had been two different callers, one male and one female. Then two witnesses came forward with descriptions of a dark haired man. The police had composites drawn up, and their suspect looked eerily like Bernard Laroche, one of Jean-Marie’s cousins.
Investigators conducted handwriting analysis, which suggested Laroche had a strikingly similar signature to that found on the October 17th letter.
While Laroche had an alibi for the majority of the 16th, there was a section of time, about 30-45 minutes, for which he could not account for. Also suspicious was the fact that Laroche was known to spend a lot of time with Michel Villemin – the man who had received the anonymous phone call regarding Grégory’s whereabouts.
Reporters found it odd how unconcerned he appeared to be with the death of a child. Then Laroche snapped, telling reporters how the Villemin family treated him like an outsider, and that they had to pay for what they had done. He slammed his hand down on the table to emphasize his point.
Then, Laroche’s 15-year-old sister-in-law Murielle Bolle denounced him to police, claiming he had picked her up from school that day. They had driven to a house in a strange town. There, he got out of the car and when he returned to the car, he had a little boy with him.
They drove away and the next time they stopped, Laroche got out of the car and took the boy with him. When he returned, the boy wasn’t with him.
Bernard Laroche was arrested.
Later Bolle recanted her testimony, claiming she had been coerced by police. She claimed that the police yelled at her and threatened to send her to a reformatory. They convinced her to agree to their narrative.
Her reversal and the fact that Laroche still denied having any part in the crime meant police didn’t really have any reason to hold him. Bernard Laroche was released from custody on February 4, 1985.
Still determined to find the killer, and with very little clues, handwriting experts went back to the anonymous letters. On March 25, 1985 they identified Grégory’s mother, Christine, as the likely author.
Jean-Marie wasn’t convinced. In fact, he was so sure that his cousin, Bernard Laroche, was guilty, that he vowed in front of journalists that he would kill his cousin. A vow he kept on March 29, 1985, when he shot and killed Laroche as he was leaving for work. Jean-Marie was convicted of murder and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
With credit for time served while awaiting trial, and a partial suspension of the sentence, he was released in December 1987, after serving only two and a half years.
While Jean-Marie was in prison, the heat was still on Christine. Not only did the handwriting analysis implicate her, but there were four witnesses claiming they had seen her in the post office on the day of Grégory’s murder. It also didn’t help that rope, identical to that used to tie Grégory’s hands and feet, had been found in the basement of the family home.
In July 1985 Christine Villemin was arrested and charged with murdering her son. But she wouldn’t give in so easily.
Christine was pregnant, and launched a hunger strike that lasted 11 days. Her incarceration didn’t last long, she was freed after an appeals court cited flimsy evidence and the absence of a coherent motive. But the damage was already done, she collapsed and miscarried, losing one of the twins she was carrying.
Christine wasn’t formally cleared of the charges until February 2, 1993.
The case went cold, but got new life in 2000, when DNA testing was conducted on a stamp used to send one of the anonymous letters. Unfortunately, the test results were inconclusive. In December 2008, DNA testing of the rope used to bind Grégory was conducted along with testing of the letters and other evidence. Again, the tests were inconclusive.
Further DNA testing was conducted in April 2013 on Grégory’s clothes and shoes. It, too, was inconclusive.
In 2017, with the help of new technology, investigators began to pour over old interviews. The software was designed to flag inconsistencies in statements, and 1 couple stood out; Marcel and Jacqueline Jacob, Grégory’s great-uncle and great-aunt. The couple invoked their right to remain silent and were released with no charges.
On July 11, 2017, with news of the case being opened again, Jean-Michel Lambert, the magistrate in charge of the first investigation, committed suicide. He wrote a farewell letter to a local newspaper where he reasoned that the mounting pressure of the case being reopened had become unbearable, and thus he chose to end his life.
In June 2017, Murielle Bolle’s cousin, Patrick Faivre, told police that Bolle’s family had physically abused her in 1984 to make her recant her testimony against Bernard Laroche. A claim she denies in her 2018 book, Breaking the Silence. In the book she calls Faivre a liar and maintains not only her innocence, but also that of Bernard Laroche. She continues to blame the police for coercing her to implicate him.
In 2019 Bolle was indicted for aggravated defamation after Faivre lodged a complaint with police.
In January 2020, the Paris Court of Appeal officially canceled part of Murielle Bolle’s testimony, ruling that the way she was questioned – without her parents or access to a lawyer – was not in keeping with the French constitution.
To date, no one has been convicted of the murder of four-year-old Grégory Villemin. We may never know who was cruel enough to take the life of an innocent child.
If this case sounds familiar to you, or if you’d like to know more, We’d encourage you to check out the Netflix documentary, Who Killed Little Gregory.
Another unsolved case you might like is that of JonBenét Ramsey.
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