¬ Charles Deroullers
Rarely has a criminal case sparked so much excitement, so much intrigue, and twists and turns, and yet we don't know who this crow is. The Grégory case is unlike any other. At the heart of the plot, a character draped in black feathers ... For more than thirty-seven years, this stranger has held the justice in fail, taunts investigators, plays with experts.
He also warned, in his letter of May 1983 to little Grégory's grandparents: "You will wonder who I was, but you will never find me."
A devilish and malicious character, a unique methodology, a split personality, with a control of situations as we have rarely seen in criminal cases. A frightening but necessary plunge into psychological darkness to better understand him.
This study could be updated if new elements are revealed to the public. Bernard Laroche never had a psychological or psychiatric examination while Christine Villemin has been subjected to 11 experts in this field. The psychological expertise of Marcel & Jacqueline Jacob turned out to be sketchy and not very interesting.
Sadistic
The black bird is sadistic, no doubt about it, and one can only imagine the mental suffering the Villemin family endured. He never stopped trying to impose a climate of terror. His personality is characterized by a set of behavioral disorders intended to hurt, humiliate or dominate others. He shows heightened cruelty, failing to distribute it physically, it is behind his hoarse voice and his quill that he spreads it psychologically. He likes to hold others under his control and restrict their autonomy, whether through terror, intimidation or prohibition. For our raven, sadism disorder is often accompanied by narcissistic and antisocial personality traits (although the term anti-social has different levels of severity but is also subject to divergence in the psychiatric & psychological sphere). He not only seeks domination but he also wants to inflict humiliation by any means possible. He will tend to seek a state of excitement.
He evokes a second bastard, he plays with it in order to make all the people he persecutes suffer. The level of sadism also varies depending on the subject. With Albert, Jean-Marie's father, he goes beyond the limits, (Albert suffered a trauma when his father hanged himself, he was only 12 yo). The crow exploits this suffering, and he seeks to make him repeat his father's suicide. He will continue to destroy his victim, without any compassion, and without restraint. At the same time, he will show a certain restraint, but never with regard to Monique, Albert, Jean-Marie and Christine. He selects his victims.
A sometimes excessive compassion (for some, ~ Jacky for example) and sadistic actions taken to the extreme (for others). We can identify an existing and complex mental structuring. And this for reasons linked, consciously or not, to an emotional and relational history specific to him. Events in particular or more simply his previous experience. And like almost all mental health problems, something dating back to childhood may be the key. Sadism may be the result of trauma. In general, the more severe the shock is, the higher the level of sadism is.
:We can easily detect an accentuated sadism when it comes to vulnerable, weak: adults, like the example of Albert, or Christine, who will be vulnerable when she is alone with Grégory at her home. The crow wants to strike where it hurts. The only pleasure derived from the success of violence remains in the order of narcissistic satisfaction through the control exercised.
The crow seeks this, like a quest, he thirsts for victory and control over the subjects he harasses. Without perhaps knowing it, he reflects what he has lived, by his actions, he reiterates his tortured past. Through his letters and calls, we can see that he literally boils when something gets in his way and he doesn't get what he wants.
We can glimpse a bit of disappointment when the other person does not weaken, or when he does not manage to destabilize (him / her) hence the slight silence following a response a bit too assured (for him).
The sadistic crow wishes to hear the psychological distress of the other, he wants once to have hung up, to obtain this satisfaction of pain in his opponent. Did this dissatisfaction lead to the murder ? We cannot certify it, but it is more than likely.
Seeing the suffering he inflicts on others gives him a feeling of power, an adrenaline rush, like a drug that he can no longer live without. What he does not get on a call in one house, he will try to get in another.
He will only be completely satisfied when his subject suffers psychologically or physically: I suffered, now it's your turn. Perhaps he himself was the victim of a torturer within his own family.
{Let's rely on the first theory of Dr. Freud concerning the drives: sadism is the active form of the same perversion of which masochism is the passive form. Perhaps we could observe in the crow the masochistic passive form specific to those around him, but he subsequently managed to hide the active form of his sadism in all its aspects.}
What is the crow looking for? The psychological hold, which gives him a feeling of domination over the other. The crow dominates several individuals at the same time, one can easily imagine that he rejoices all the more.
Manipulator
The dual personality of the malicious manipulator characterizes the crow.
We can observe a dexterity that he easily adapts according to the different interlocutors on the phone, and in a striking way, although it’s a difficult exercise to achieve, because in this context, let’s not forget that he hides at the same time, his identity.
The first common trait to all manipulators: they have a double face. The first is someone very outgoing, sympathetic, caring, in short: above all suspicion. The second, which surfaces when his mask falls, is a morose, taciturn person, devoid of 'joie de vivre', although he may show the opposite. When you get to know this person better, you also discover that they are naturally very stressed and impatient.
Manipulated people have a hard time hearing and admitting it, the manipulator is an unaffected person, who fakes his feelings for the sole purpose of getting what he wants. The manipulator has a malicious background and the implementation of his strategies is most often conscious. He is mentally "frozen" in childhood. He's an adult, but he has reactions from a 5~year~old. This doesn't mean that our crow isn't smart, quite the opposite. By analyzing his reactions to the phone, we discover that he is very immature. The more immature the manipulators are, the more cruel and selfish they are usually.
[A very good example of manipulation is the phone call sent to Liliane where he tries to make people believe that she's his accomplice. Or when he wants Jean-Marie to believe in the existence of a second bastard in the family. The purpose of this maneuver is to sow discord within the family.]
Whether this information is true or not, we can see through it a desire for manipulation. The crow bases all his stratagems on the emotional dependence of others. He not only conceals his actions, but also his deep thoughts, because he knows well how they can shock those around him. He buries his emotions so as not to find himself alone. It was at this precise moment that he began to manipulate reality, the premise of a life of lies.
We can sometimes discover several personalities in him depending on the situations in which we place him. [For example, the calls made to Monique do not have the same resonance as the calls made to Jean-Marie.] The crow may be an eternal victim, not that he does not see his share of responsibility for the events, but that he denies it in order to preserve the gaze of others on him.
All his strength also lies in observing the emotional state of the other, in his ability to react and therefore, to shape him/her. What he manipulates above all are emotions. He controls the ability of others to think. He is a dangerous character because he is always on the verge of losing reality, and he can switch to it at any time, dragging in anyone who will not be able to free themselves from his grip. The crow unsettles his interlocutors with whistles, nonchalant postures, he sometimes leaves an agonizing silence, putting others in suspense, he calls in the middle of the night, does not speak, because he knows that the anguish of the dark feeds fears already existing. The goal is to keep them in a state of madness. He loosens his grip for a while, then, when we believe he may have stopped, he starts again at a frenetic pace, plunging them to the edge of the abyss.
He will have no remorse to do so, because it depends on his survival!
The crow also has the ability to impersonate a person, thus abusing their trust. He directs people towards false leads, he wants to create conflicts and spread rumors. Through the elements of this case we see how manipulative he is to degrees of malevolence beyond all competition. He utters words that are sometimes true, sometimes false, which arouse strong reactions. He rejoices in his role as a spectator, he delights in being his cause, and he lets it be known. The crow has a vital need to destroy, he is looking for a scapegoat on which to exercise domination, a person who will allow him to achieve his ends, and to rise in society. It's quite possible that the crow does not have true friends, but rather instrumental relationships that serve his purposes.
Such a degree of manipulation raises in us a primordial question, what is the upstream element, during the life of this individual, that has led him on this path? He surely fights an inner malaise that he carefully hides through manipulation.
He takes shelter behind a shell that he forges for himself, but when it no longer resists, he finds himself confronted with a void, he sees, with horror, his reality in the face. It is possible that the crow underwent in his infancy a manipulating relationship of his emotions and that he was not able to develop an authentic personality. He certainly convinces himself that he is a strong individual, but he will remain modest in appearance. This is also the reason why he seeks authenticity, innocence, as well as values in his victims. We know that the crow has at least one female accomplice, she must also be manipulative, but one of the two must have some hold over the other.
The crow is in representation, he is comparable to an actor. During his calls, he sequence his speech in a methodical way, as if he had repeated it before calling. His manipulation reaches high levels, when one observes such control of conversation and the skillful way of answering and asking a question. He is methodical, precise, and he brings his subject where he wants it, while he ignores the response of his interlocutor. We can speak here, without restraint, of a calculated manipulation. We feel a form of pain behind the crow's voice, maybe he lacked attention as a child? With him, there are only two types of possible relationship, dominant or dominated. In extreme cases, the perverse aspect is sometimes violent, to the point of wanting to destroy their humanity.
If his female accomplice were as manipulative as him, there would remain a conflict which, in their association, would necessarily have become a major problem.
[Note: Jacqueline Jacob was according to her daughter Valérie, the dominant one, directive and demanding. Albert will even say that she was extremely resentful, other testimonies mention her influence on her husband.]
Jealous
The least we can say is that jealousy among the Villemins~Jacobs is an integral part of their daily life. The crow itself is envious to death, mainly towards Jean-Marie. The tone of his voice when he talks about the possessions of others demonstrates a sense of injustice that affects him relatively significantly.
We leave the framework of ordinary jealousy, it sends back to him a feeling of long-standing anger because his voice remains monotonous and devoid of affect, his feeling is not new, but it cannot last any longer. Several studies have brought to light the characteristic symptoms of jealousy. Emotions like pain, anger, rage, envy, sadness, fear and humiliation. The mere fact that the crow speaks of revenge on the possessions of others shows the degree of importance he places on jealousy or envy.
When we know the finality of this case, the murder, we can therefore conclude that his jealousy was visceral, he could not stand it any longer. His emotional anger could not be contained, his thirst for revenge could only be quenched by an action that touches the heart of the person who is at the origin of this jealousy. “My revenge is done.” The final culmination of his frustrations.
Jealousy is one of the most dangerous and destructive feelings that can upset a person. However, one must clearly distinguish an “ordinary” jealousy and pathological jealousy. The first is the one that we can all feel and suffer from at some point in our lives. The second type of jealousy, namely pathological jealousy, includes all those confused and necessarily unjustified feelings that will transform the life of the jealous person into a real nightmare.
The person who experiences pathological jealousy has a totally distorted view of reality. The crow is jealous of each other's relationships.
The pathological degree of his jealousy is established on all the social facets that surrounds him, namely, material goods, as well as human relationships. They can be upstream the fruit of social frustration during childhood and which developed crescendo until adulthood. The feeling of jealousy in human relationships often manifests itself primarily from the child to the parents, mainly the mother. Second, it manifests itself in the relationship between brother and sister. This happens very often in a large family. So what was the place of this crow within his own family?
Jealousy is a complex emotion, with multiple origins, it is cruel and savage, invasive, devastating, revealing itself to the borders of the absurd, sometimes so far removed from reality. Confusion, aggressiveness, hatred, anxiety, sometimes terror, the jealous contains this jealousy within him. But not the crow. On the contrary, he manifests his feeling, it is his engine, he will certainly not say that he is jealous, but all his actions bear the mark and this frustration cannot remain in his heart, it must be manifested by his words and his actions. It's vital, the cup is full, jealousy quickly turned to hatred. With him it’s pathological and inwardly he will only solve this problem by pouring out his animosity which burns him deeply. No one among the protagonists comes close to the crow, he has no namesake.
We will note, around the elements that we have, the comparisons that the crow makes of each other, and this constantly, in the same way as a child comparing the toys of one to those of others. To him, this seems to be of the utmost importance. He is jealous of Jean-Marie, not only for having succeeded professionally, but also because he is a member of the Villemin family, the one invited before the others. These are the representations of a jealous position, the crow has his sufferings as we have ours, not so exceptional as that, when we look more closely at the multiplicity of relational pains, particularly through the exchanges that they will generate. Most of the time jealousy is fleeting, but not for him. His increased pathology reinforces his deep hatred and therefore becomes more dangerous.
It is rare to find evil crows devoid of jealousy, it’s very recurrent, very often it even turns into an obsession. Monique wrote down approximately seven hundred calls in her notebook. An obsession. Does the crow envy Jean-Marie Villemin in all aspects of his life? Possible, maybe even that Grégory represents the son he never had. His jealousy is pathological, obsessive and sickly.
Methodical
Given the undeniable organization of the crow, we can already deduce that he is not psychotic in the true sense of the term ~ but he has certain criteria, such as manipulation for example.
| Grégory was found hand and foot tied with a thin cord. The day after the crime, the gendarmes discovered a rope similar to that found on Grégory's body, in the garden of Georges Jacob, a great uncle of Grégory. The string is seized by the gendarmes to be appraised. In April 1985, when the Nancy SRPJ police observed around the house of Grégory's parents, which was now empty, the police discovered a rope holding a gutter on the roof.
The string is seized, assessed and compared with the string discovered on Grégory's body. The results of the expertise show the string seized is different. On April 23, two searches were carried out at the homes of friends (Jean-Marie & Christine) who stored part of their belongings. The police discover and seize a string surrounding a garden hose. On April 25, the police raided the Villemin's home and found nine pieces of string in the garage, the attic and the cellar. The pieces of string are all analyzed. Two pieces of string found in the cellar, surrounding zinc plates, turned out to be exactly the same as the string found on Grégory's body. Jean-Marie Villemin explains to the judge that he did not buy this string, it was given to him by his father Albert Villemin during the summer of 1984.
He also explains to judge Lambert that the end of the ball of this same rope was given to Bernard Laroche to fix a tool on the roof of his car (This element was denied by Albert & Gilbert Villemin, Bernard had placed the tool in his car. This is a false memory.) After analysis, it turns out that the string found at Georges Jacob's house is also identical to that found on the child's body. |
Other family members might have this type of string, the value of this material is greatly diminished and the exploitation of this clue stops there. Can we say that the crow uses this type of cord to cover their tracks? Difficult to say, but the methodology of his crime, using these cords, shows that the killer wanted to indicate that it was not an accident, a strong message, he claims his crime, it’s the crow’s warning which has come to fruition, the finality of his work, his ‘vengeance’. The crow experienced difficulty in committing his act, his revenge animated his passage to the act. The murder in itself responds to this need, no outcome without it, the clues around the murder clearly demonstrate a certain restraint vis-à-vis of the child. It's not only the beanie on Gregory's face that lets us think so, but also the fact there is no sign of violence.
It may be difficult to understand when we talk about the crime of a child, but it is important to grasp this point. The family factor can also explain this restraint. What is violent, on the other side, is the desired result of the criminal, he wants by this murder to obtain complete psychological destruction.
The letter support this idea, he makes sure that there can be no possible ambiguity: I am the murderer of Grégory and no matter how much money you have, nothing will now be able to give you back your son.
Let’s stop here for a moment. If we want to understand his methodology, we must come back to three important points. First the crow’s absence for a long time, then the crime, and finally the letter.
In that same letter the crow writes: "It is not your money that will give you back your son." In this sentence, we find the word "Money". Money and crime are closely linked. A long absence then suddenly the crime of Grégory, what happened in the days before the murder? Jean-Marie Villemin receives the visit of his brother Michel, the latter listens the good news. What matters to us here is the time lapse between the presence of Michel at the home of his brother Jean-Marie, and the murder.
By digging through the testimonies, around the time of the abduction and the time it took for its author to abduct the child, we see a methodical organization worthy of a military operation.
Let’s take into consideration the mapping of the place of abduction, then the minimal time lapse between Michel's visit and Grégory's disappearance (2 days!).
We can deduce from this a perfect control of each parameter, in a very small window of time, if we obviously assume that the reappearance of the crow occurs following the meeting of the two brothers. Jean-Marie enlarges his house, he purchases a new leather sofa, as well as new furnishings. This information reaches the ears of the crow, which triggers a reaction in him. Despite all efforts to harm the Chief, life goes on, what is more, Jean-Marie & Christine talk about having a second child. A few days later, Grégory is kidnapped and killed. Crimes motivated by jealousy are often the result of countless mistakes and carelessness. However, the crow left almost no clue, nothing undermines his modus operandi.
An extraordinary control, our man is thoughtful. This is perhaps one of the scariest things about him. Why? Because nothing is more important to him than to realize his revenge, he focuses on his purpose.
His methods are strongly reminiscent of military operations: plans, strategies and coordination are his watchwords. His first calls contained military music, before giving way to his slow and scary voice.
Calculator
The crow calculates the actions he initiates and measures the scope of each, each sentence he says or gesture he makes is the fruit of a reflection.
On a very specific point, when calling Jean-Marie Villemin, he will end the conversation by saying: "This is the last time for everyone that I phone, I will stop and here is why I pissed you off for two years. There is no reason why the big one always takes. We always put him aside .. ha ha ... !"
This is undoubtedly a decoy, we suppose that the aim of the maneuver is that Grégory's father relax his vigilance. Actually, following this call, he will not manifest himself to Albert and Monique, nor to Christine and Jean-Marie.
Would Christine have let Grégory play outside the house alone (on October 16, 1984) if the crow had continued to harass them? Obviously not, this is a precise plan perfectly worked out on his part.
The family had accepted the intervention of the gendarmes (phone tapping). This event quickly slows down his enthusiasm, he sometimes takes risks but as a seasoned calculator, he knows the limits not to be crossed.
It is highly possible that he calculated this pause skillfully and intentionally beforehand. The most plausible hypothesis ~ not only from the point of view of concordance with the facts ~ but also from the point of view of methodology which is proper to him. Difficult to access the child, the family is on constant alert and the only way to interrupt vigilance is to suggest that he’s no longer operating. If that's the case, you'll have to admit that it's just very cleverly orchestrated.
The fact that he goes against each other in order to sow discord within the Villemin family shows that he strategically calculates his calls and letters, the interlocutors are indeed targeted people, he knocks at the right door, and in very precise times, like when he calls Christine when Jean-Marie is working or when he calls Liliane to suggest that she is the culprit ~ (if) something bad happens in the future ~ ie the assassination of Grégory ~ (and his father's accomplice, Roger Jacquel).
The crow is perverse and calculating. He calculates everything, all the time. He is cautious and leaves no place for spontaneity. His goal is to have control not only over others but over any type of relationship, he can't stand being told no. Pride is often very important to him and he can't stand that someone can control him. The crow uses his knowledge and observations to predict situations or reactions. We could call him an observer. He becomes manipulative the moment he uses all this information on his own, when he manipulates people or events to achieve a specific purpose.
He will try to usurp the identity of Roger Jacquel in order to cover his tracks. This maneuver will work since the day of Grégory's disappearance, Jean-Marie's first instinct will be to go, armed with a rifle, to Roger Jacquel's. This man is calculating because he has the capacity for anticipation, but here we are talking about the evil calculator who anticipates events for malicious ends.
Antisocial
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