Pat Perna, screenwriter of the comic strip “Grégory”, salutes the “strength of resilience” of the Vuillemin couple

The graphic novel “Grégory” looks back on the still unsolved murder of little Grégory, in October 1984. It is based on the unpublished testimony of his father, Jean-Marie Villemin.

“We have this image of them which is frozen for eternity. They, like their child, have remained the same,” says Pat Perna, screenwriter of the graphic novel Gregory (Les Arènes), Thursday October 3 on France Inter. It recounts the death of Grégory Villemin, this 4-year-old child killed and found in Vologne in 1984. A murder never elucidated which fascinates France for 40 years. Jean-Marie Villemin, Grégory’s father, signs the preface to the work devoted to the case which is still under investigation. “A father still in shock, 40 years later”testifies Pat Perna, who recounts, without hiding anything, the dark behind the scenes of the drama which turned his life and that of his wife upside down.

The child’s mother, Christine Villemin, “wanted to stay as far away from this book as possible”underlines the screenwriter. When she read it, “I saw her eyes suddenly waver, and then she cried, he says. And Jean-Marie was there to console her, as he is every time, since what unites them is this incredible force of love.”. There “strength of resilience” of the Villemin couple “is linked to this incredible love that fascinates everyone who comes into contact with them”he adds. “Not only did they stay united, but it united them even more. This abject story, which would have killed half of us, transcended them.”

The Vuillemin couple have not appeared on television for thirty years and now live far from Lépanges-sur-Vologne. “Christine, her greatest victory is being able to go out, take public transport, go to work, go for a coffee, without being recognized”. In the preface, Jean-Marie Villemin pays tribute to his wife, indicted by an investigating judge, then exonerated by a second judge. “He never doubted her, and she always supported him, whatever he did”says Pat Perna, while Jean-Marie Villemin was sentenced in 1993 to five years in prison for the murder in 1985 of his cousin Bernard Laroche, whom he remains convinced was Grégory’s assassin.

“Jean-Marie Villemin will never give up. Never a centimeter, never an inch. His life is a fight, his fight is to have the truth”explains Pat Perna. According to him, Grégory’s father is convinced that none of the witnesses from the time still alive will speak. “People are walled in their silence, in their hatred.”