Magistrates and investigators will now retrace the “life course” of this ex-policeman then policeman, serial killer and rapist. Found in 2021, he committed suicide after leaving a confession letter.
Article written by
Posted
Update
Reading time : 1 min.
The so-called “Grêlé” file, one of the oldest French criminal cases, has just joined the “cold case” unit, recently created within the Nanterre judicial court (Hauts-de-Seine), learned France Télévisions from concordant sources, Monday, September 12. Asked, neither the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office nor the Paris public prosecutor’s office wished to comment on the information.
This case – a former gendarme who became a police officer suspected of several murders and rapes of young girls and adults in the Paris region – will be investigated by the same magistrate, Nathalie Turquey. Last week, the judge left the Paris court for the specialized center of Nanterre, taking the file with her.
For the judge and the investigators, the challenge will now be to establish a “life course” in order to trace the existence of this man as closely as possible, in particular during these three years and to identify other victims. In the 2000s, he settled in the south of France, first in the Bouches-du-Rhône, then in the Hérault.
It was in September 2021, after thirty-five years of investigation by the criminal brigade, that François Vérove was confused by a vast genetic sampling operation from some 750 former gendarmes stationed in the Paris region in the 1980s and 1990s. .
A few days after his summons to the judicial police, François Vérove, 59, killed himself, leaving behind a letter of confession and farewell. He implied that he had ceased his attacks in 1997, while the last crime being judicially imputed to him dated back to 1994.