Bernard Albert Laroche, born March 23, 1955 in Épinal, nephew of Monique Jacob - Albert Villemin's wife -, lived in Aumontzey (Vosges), in a pavilion built in 1980, on the side of hillside, about a kilometer from the house of his uncle and aunt whom he overlooked. The phone was installed there in 1981.
One of their closest neighbors is his uncle, Marcel Jacob, with whom he has many affinities given their small age difference. Bernard, orphaned the day after his birth following the death of his mother, Thérèse Jacob, had been raised in Aumontzey by his maternal grandparents Léon and Adeline Jacob, (at the same time as his cousin Jacky Villemin, the "bastard", who struggles to be accepted by his father, Albert) with whom his father, Marcel Laroche, a very good man, of perfect righteousness and unanimously esteemed, had settled down until his death in June 1982. Bernard was also very attached to the latter. For the past twelve years, Bernard had worked at ANCEL weaving in Granges-sur-Vologne, three kilometers from his home.
Employee representative on the works council and member of the CGT, he was appointed foreman on September 1, 1984 after having applied for this position for six years. To achieve this, he followed two years of training at the spinning school in Épinal before obtaining, in 1980, a CAP as a trimmer in the loom. In 1976 he had married Marie-Ange Bolle, born May 2, 1957 in Cirey-sur-Vezouze (Meurthe-et-Moselle), worker at the Vosges Profiling Company, but his understanding with the latter seemed poor.
From their union came on September 4, 1980, a son, Sébastien, slightly handicapped by a cyst on the right temple having required the installation of a drain behind the ear. His father was very attached to this child whom he looked after a lot. At their home had lived for several months his young sister-in-law Murielle Bolle, nicknamed "Bouboule", born June 15, 1969, pupil at CES of Bruyères, who was responsible for looking after Sébastien whose health required constant surveillance. During the day, members of the Laroche family often went two hundred meters from their home to a sister of Thérèse and Monique Jacob, Louisette Jacob, a woman who was a little simple in mind but very devoted to her nephew Bernard to whom she has rendered many services. Bernard was, apparently at least, in excellent terms with his uncle Albert and his aunt Monique, who considered him a bit like a son, and with his first cousins, especially with Jacky, the legitimate natural child in the company of whom he had was raised during the first years of his childhood, with his grandparents, and even more with Michel Villemin and his wife, née Ginette Lecomte, whom he both frequented very assiduously. His life and that of Jean-Marie Villemin has followed parallel trajectories, both professionally and personally. But if the routes are similar, Bernard Laroche's life has been more laborious.
After Jacky Villemin, his wife and his parents-in-law, the spouses Jacquel had been exonerated following the verification of their alibis, the investigators who were convinced that the crime came from the entourage of the civil parties, heard systematically all members of the Villemin and Jacob families. Heard on October 25, 1984, then heard again in more detail on October 31 because of the suspicions directed on him by Mesdames Jacquin-Keller and Berrichon-Sedeyn, Bernard Laroche declared himself a stranger to the crime and gave his timetable during the afternoon of October 16, 1984, the following report:
He had risen at 1 p.m. because he was working at night. In the absence of his wife detained by his work at the Gerardmer PROFIL factory until 9:00 p.m. he had returned from wood from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. with the help of his aunt Louisette Jacob. Around fifteen forty or six o'clock he went by car to the home of his cousin and close friend Michel Villemin in Aumontzey to consult a catalog. At 4.30 p.m. he returned to Louisette Jacob's home and waited there until 5.30 p.m. for his work colleague Jean-Pierre Zonca, with whom he had to buy wine on sale at the Champion supermarket in Laval-sur-Vologne.
This friend not having come, he went to his home in Granges-sur-Vologne with his son Sébastien, but found no one there. Returning to his aunt Louisette at 5:30 p.m., he met his sister-in-law Murielle Bolle who, after leaving Bruyères college at 5 p.m., had just arrived by school bus and was watching television . Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later he left in the company of Sébastien at the Champion store where around six o'clock he bought a hundred and fifty bottles of wine, then from there he went a little after 6 p.m. in Bruyeres at the Renaissance café, which was usually closed on this week day, but where he nevertheless managed to collect the proceeds from a winning bet.
On his return around 6.30 p.m., he had met Albert Villemin's car at Laveline-devant-Bruyères, driven by Michel Villemin (who was going to Laveline to take part in the search for Grégory). He then dropped his son off at Louisette Jacob, unloaded the wine in his house, returned to dinner with his aunt. At 8 p.m. he had gone to bed Sébastien and remained at his home until he left for the factory at 8:45 p.m.
Murielle Bolle is Bernard Laroche's sister-in-law. At the time aged 15, she grew up in a family of 10 children. At its head, Lucien, a man reputed to be violent, and Jeanine, suffering from diabetes.
Heard in her turn on October 31, then on November 1, 1984, Murielle Bolle declared that: on October 16 preceding at 5 p.m., when she left CES at Bruyères, she got on the school bus whose driver had a little goat and mustaches and that she had arrived at Aumontzey at 5:30 p.m. She went directly to the home of Louisette Jacob to do her class homework. At his entry, around five twenty-five, Bernard Laroche was sitting in the kitchen with his son on his knees and watching television. Ten minutes later Bernard and Sébastien left to pick up wine at the Champion store in Laval.
They returned shortly after 6 p.m. After dinner she had returned to her brother-in-law's home with him. Intrigued by the divergence between the account of Bernard Laroche and that of his sister-in-law regarding the order of their arrival at the home of Louisette Jacob and by the discrepancy between the declarations of the girl and those of four of her classmates having stated that she was not on the school bus but in a car waiting for her at the end of the college, the gendarmes again heard Murielle Bolle on November 2, 1984.
She began by maintaining her previous version of the facts, concerning in particular the bus driver, which was inaccurate, because on October 16, 1984 this vehicle had been driven by an occasional driver, Jean-Marie Galmiche, who did not wear mustaches and had glasses. Confused by this lie Murielle Bolle admitted that she had not told the truth and gave the following facts:
At the end of CES, she had actually climbed, not in the school bus, but in the Peugeot 305 gray green automobile of her brother-in-law Bernard Laroche. She was seated to the right of it, Sébastien standing in the back. They had passed through Champ-le-Duc, Beauménil and arrived at Lépanges-sur-Vologne, a place where she had never been before. Bernard Laroche stopped there for two minutes, got out of the car and came back in the company of an unknown little boy, the same age as Sébastien and wearing a beanie which he had brought up in the back.
They left in the direction of Bruyères and stopped again in Lépanges. Her brother-in-law was away for a moment. He had nothing in her hand and she didn't know what he had done. They left in the other direction and after a journey of about five minutes they arrived in another village which, she had known the next day, was called Docelles. Bernard Laroche had gone out with the child in his beanie while she herself had stayed in the car with her nephew Sébastien.
At the end of a period of time of which she could not specify the duration, Bernard Laroche had returned alone and they had returned to Louisette Jacob in Aumontzey via Bruyères. It was then about five thirty. Bernard Laroche left five minutes later saying that he was going to buy wine in Laval-sur-Vologne. He had taken Sébastien with him and returned half an hour later. During this time she had completed her homework at the home of Louisette Jacob. A photograph of Grégory Villemin having been shown to her, she recognized that it was indeed the child who had boarded their car.
Placed in police custody at 1:30 p.m. at the end of her hearing Murielle Bolle was heard again the same day from 6:15 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. She added some details to her previous story: Arrived at a crossroads in the heights of Lépanges, Bernard Laroche had said to her, while getting out of the car "Be careful with Bibiche", nickname of Sébastien. On their return they had first taken a barred road in the agglomeration of Lépanges; precision whose investigation confirmed the accuracy. During the trip Grégory had spoken to Sébastien. In Docelles, a town she had never known before, her brother-in-law had parked her car in a square, opened the back door and called the child by his first name, Grégory. She had seen them go and did not know where they had gone. She had thought he was taking Grégory to a family friend.
The next day, November 3, 1984 at 8:30 am, after a night's rest, Murielle Bolle maintained her last statements and mentioned on a sketch the place where Bernard Laroche's car was parked at the exit of the CES and the location of the school bus then the route they had followed to Lépanges. In this locality they had climbed a large hill. When they first stopped she saw the roof of a house higher up on the hill. She had thought on October 17, 1984, by learning from Louisette Jacob Grégory Villemin's murder and by seeing on a newspaper the photograph of the child that Laroche was the author of the crime. But she hadn't dared to say anything because she was afraid. In his opinion, her brother-in-law had come to pick her up at the end of college, which had never happened before, so that she could keep Sébastien who could not remain alone because of his disability. She explained that she had lied about the bus for fear that her sister and brother-in-law would be worried and also because she was a little afraid of the latter although he had never threatened her. She said she was relieved to have told the truth "because it was too serious to hide." The same day at ten fifteen, she declared that her deposition was in line with reality and said that she was ready to renew it before the investigating judge. To Marshal Chef Bouquot, who drew his attention to the importance of her testimony and the seriousness of its consequences, she replied: "Yes, that's right. I remember it perfectly. I will remember it all my life."
On November 3, 1984, at the end of her last hearing, she was examined by a doctor and she returned to her parents' home in Laveline-devant-Bruyères as soon as she was arrested, which stopped at 10:30 a.m. His father, Lucien Bolle, informed at the end of the morning by the gendarmes of his daughter's revelations, pledged under oath not to disclose them and keeps his promise. Monday November 5, 1984 the girl, heard by Mister Lambert from nine fifteen to ten thirty, fully confirmed her statements to the gendarmes of November 2 and 3 previous and the account of Grégory Villemin's abduction. She said that he was smiling and that Bernard Laroche was nice to him. According to her, they would have made a U-turn at the place of their first parking at Lépanges and they would not have passed in front of the house whose roof she had seen. She could not describe the place of Docelles where their car had parked and claimed to have seen no river nearby.
Asked by the investigating judge, outside the presence of the gendarmes, about their attitude towards her, she replied "that they had been nice", that they had never dictated her answers to her and that she had been able to speak freely. She again assured that she had told the truth and renewed her testimony during a transport to the scene organized by the examining magistrate to which she showed the location where Laroche's vehicle was parked near the college of Bruyères and the place where he had stopped on the heights of Lépanges, but she was unable to find the route they had followed. It is true that she did not know the area well because her parents did not have a car. At the end of this transport on the spot she joined her family in Laveline-devant-Bruyères.
Bernard Laroche having been the same day, November 5, 1984, charged with assassination and placed under warrant of deposit, Murielle Bolle went the following day to the Office of the magistrate of EPINAL accompanied by her mother, Jeanine Lavallée wife Bolle, and, in the presence of her, retracted the charges she had brought against her brother-in-law. Returning to her first version of the facts, she maintains that she had boarded the school bus the previous October 16 at 5 p.m. and she claimed that the gendarmes had deceived her into believing that Bernard Laroche had made a confession and had threatened her with placement in a reformatory and with a charge of complicity in assassination if she did not agree to charge him.
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