Already sentenced to life imprisonment for having killed 11 people, “the criminal backpacker” is suspected of a twelfth murder, that of Jean-Joseph Clément, committed in August 1989 in Vaucluse. Prosecuted for this case, Francis Heaulme had obtained a dismissal of the case in 2002. The courts have just reopened the case due to new elements.
Christine Clément has been fighting for 34 years to put a name to her father’s murderer. Jean-Joseph Clément, agricultural machinery repairer, was beaten to death in the face on August 8, 1989, in Bédarrides, near Avignon. He was 59 years old. That day, Francis Heaulme will be checked by the gendarmes a few hundred meters from the crime scene. He is being prosecuted in this case. Later, he even confessed to this murder, before retracting and obtaining a dismissal of the charges in 2002.
Justice has just reopened the case on “new charges”, that is to say due to new elements. Francis Heaulme was indicted before the dismissal of the case, this reopening therefore automatically causes his new indictment.
For Christine Clément, who was 32 years old at the time, the reopening of the case is a first victory. She is now waiting for the serial killer to be tried: “For once, I was heard. It’s really a hope that Francis Heaulme will be tried for the murder of my dad. I tell myself that I didn’t fight for nothing. Until then, I had concrete walls in front of me. I will continue until the end, I will not stop. I want an answer to all the questions I have been asking myself for 34 years: if he suffered, if he died immediately.. . I want a response.”
“As long as I don’t know who killed him, I won’t be able to mourn, that’s for sure. The big problem in this case was the loss of several pieces of evidence.”
Christine Clementat franceinfo
Seals were in fact lost during the procedure. Christine Clément’s lawyers still hope that genetic analyzes can take place if seals are found, but also on the documents still listed.
Common points with other crimes
Last year, Masters Marine Allali and Didier Seban filed a request for the Jean-Joseph Clément case to be reopened. They several new elements are put forward: the possibility, thanks to progress in science, of analyzing the seals still preserved and obtaining decisive material evidence; the modus operandi, too, which brings to mind murders for which Francis Heaulme was convicted even though the case had already been dismissed. The common points in the act with other crimes committed by Francis Heaulme: the violence of the blows, the victim’s pants pulled down, or even the presence of excrement near the crime scene. Finally, an investigating judge, at the request of the Reims prosecutor, where the case had been dismissed, reopened this cold case in recent weeks.
For Maître Marine Allali, “It is incomprehensible that this file was closed in 2002.” With Didier Seban, she believes that many elements converge towards Francis Heaulme, in particular a modus operandi similar to that used for the murder of two children, Cyril Beining and Alexandre Beckrich, in Montigny-lès-Metz (Moselle), on September 28, 1986 A double murder for which Heaulme was convicted in 2018, while the case of Jean-Joseph Clément had already been closed by a dismissal of the case.
Heaulme denies being the author of the murder
This dismissal having been pronounced in December 2002 by an investigating judge in Reims, it is therefore in Reims that the case has been reopened in recent weeks. Heard a month ago by a judge in Reims, the serial killer reiterated that he was not the author of this crime. He remained in the same position he had before the dismissal of the case in 2002, his lawyer Liliane Glock told franceinfo.
Convicted of eleven murders, Francis Heaulme, aged 64, is serving a life sentence in the central prison of Ensisheim, in Haut-Rhin. According to our information, the file of the murder of Jean-Joseph Clément is on track to be transmitted soon to the Nanterre cold case unit. The unit is already re-examining the criminal journey of the “crime backpacker”, looking for other potential victims.