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“I hope you die of grief, Chief. It’s not your money that can give you back your son. Here’s my revenge, poor bastard!” This is the text of the anonymous letter that the parents of little Grégory received the day after the discovery of the tied up body of their 4-year-old son in the icy waters of Vologne, in the Vosges, on October 16, 1984. And l riddle remains…
This new series in four episodes (1 & 2; 3 & 4) from the magazine”1:15 p.m. on Sunday” (Twitter, #1:15 p.m.), signed Pauline Dordilly, Henri Desaunay, Simon Fichet and Nicolas Berthelot, returns to a criminal case that has haunted France for nearly forty years, the assassination of little Grégory Villemin. It all dates back to October 16, 1984: the little boy’s body was found bound hand and foot at 10:15 p.m. in the icy waters of Vologne, in Docelles, a town in the Vosges department, six kilometers from his family’s home in Lépanges-sur- Vologne. Four hours earlier, the 4-year-old boy was playing on a pile of sand in front of the family home where his mother had left him to play.
The case gets carried away very quickly and takes on an extraordinary dimension. The next day, the child’s parents, Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin, received an anonymous letter: “I hope you will die of grief, chief. It is not your money that can give you back your son. Here’s my revenge poor jerk!”. A crime never elucidated which has brought to light all the dysfunctions of French institutions. Justice, police, gendarmerie, media… France has lost its bearings in this affair which remains one of the greatest French legal enigmas.
The voice of the crow, again and again…
Why this hatred towards the little boy’s father? Who is the author of this letter which claims the murder? What does this crime tell of the jealousies between the different branches of the Villemin family, at the heart of this department in the mid-1980s? The voice of the crow, again and again… Who is hiding behind these calls, incessant for years, made up of insults and threats?
A crow claimed responsibility for the crime, in an anonymous letter, which will tell the gendarmes, from the outset, that this case is unusual: ordinarily, crows do not take action. And then, the investigation quickly turns to the members of the Villemin family, which seems united behind the parents on the day of the little boy’s funeral. A chilling day that no one is about to forget…
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