The last words of Murielle Bolle
The physical clues did not speak, neither the genetic traces, nor the fingerprints, nor the vocal expertises of the crows' recordings. And the key witness, Murielle Bolle, 15 years old in 1984, the sister-in-law of Bernard Laroche whom she had implicated in the kidnapping of Grégory, erased her first confession.
But suddenly, in May 2017, the investigators regained hope with the discovery of an inscription in the notebook of the church of Lépanges-sur-Vologne intended for the faithful:
“It's indeed Bernard L. who killed Grégory, I was with him”, signed "Murielle Bolle, May 13, 2008”.
The lady of the catechism, who stumbled upon this enigmatic sentence, alerted them. Is this a late confession by Murielle Bolle? This 48-year-old woman, mother of three, does she, in the words of an investigator, "possibly want to ease her conscience"? The gendarmes first want to make sure that these words have been drawn by Murielle Bolle. Because, since the beginning of this case, anonymous writings can no longer be counted. Discreetly, the parish register of Lépanges is transmitted to the laboratory of Professor Doutremepuich in 'Bordeaux', which detects six different DNAs near the binding of the church book. The biology expert compares them to the DNAs of protagonists in the Grégory case already collected at the end of 2009: one of them corresponds to Murielle Bolle's genetic fingerprint recorded at that time !
To be clear, the gendarmes went to Granges-sur-Vologne, at her home, on June 14, the day Jacqueline and Marcel Jacob were arrested and placed in custody, and subjected her to a new sample. The red-haired woman passes the swab through her mouth.
Pr Doutremepuich extracts from this new sample a more complete profile of Murielle Bolle. Because more segments of DNA are being analyzed today than eight years ago. However, if the biological trace left on the parish notebook in 2017 "matched" with the DNA of Murielle Bolle taken in 2009, it differs from her refined DNA released in 2017.
We then return to the classic method, coercion and interrogation, to try to obtain a confession. On June 28, 2017, at 11 am, the gendarmes arrested Murielle Bolle and placed her in police custody for
“complicity in the assassination” of Grégory Villemin on October 16, 1984, between 5 pm and 9 pm, “rue de la Vologne to Docelles 88460 (France)”, for “willful failure to prevent a crime”, "non-assistance to a person in danger”, "non-denunciation of a crime” and, finally, “kidnapping and forcible confinement, followed by death".
At the Saint-Étienne-lès-Remiremont brigade, the gendarmes are preparing to start the hearing of Murielle Bolle's last chance. For them it’s a real race against time, because the gendarmes cannot keep it in sight for more than twenty-five hours. Thirty-two years earlier, on November 2, 1984, she had in fact already completed twenty-three hours of custody at the Bruyères gendarmerie.
However, legally, you cannot exceed two days and two nights of detention on the same procedure, i.e. 48 hours, even though this one extends over more than three decades. After an interview with her historic lawyer Jean-Paul Teissonnière, Murielle Bolle confirms to two adjutants what her DNA has already proved: the registration in the parish register of Lépanges is not in her hand.
In addition, she is
“not a believer”, she goes “to church just for communions and baptisms, that's all”.
At 2:45 p.m., the two adjutants gently attack the hearing of Murielle Bolle, through her childhood.
Born June 15, 1969 in Bruyères and the penultimate of ten children, the red-haired woman portrays a bucolic youth, between a "hardworking father" and a "kind but sick, diabetic mother", in the working-class city of Laveline-devant-Bruyères.
Murielle likes to play soccer and take her dog for a nice walk.
"I was going to the brimbelles [blueberries] with mum and pick mushrooms".
Sometimes she goes fishing with her godfather or her brother René, or in the forest with her father Lucien. At the age of 15, she landed in a specialized section at the college in Bruyères, which corresponds to CM1 in the normal cycle. In the eyes of her teacher, Murielle passes for an “awake” student, but “limited” in terms of vocabulary. Without apparent complex and "not impressionable" according to her teacher, "Murielle has a very bad temper", is "aggressive" with her classmates, "she does not like school" and "does not hesitate to use her fists and her feet, even with boys, when she had a dispute”. It must be said that the kid is "at a good school" with her older brothers, involved in fights.
"It was kid's stuff" minimizes Murielle Bolle while in custody.
At 4 p.m., the gendarmes tighten the focus on her relations with her sister Marie-Ange and his brother-in-law Bernard Laroche. Since the start of the 1984 school year, she has kept his 4-year-old nephew, Sébastien Laroche, dit "Bibiche”, in the evening at his home in Aumontzey, the time that her older sister Marie-Ange returned from her job at the Gérardmer factory,
"so as not to leave him alone”. Sometimes she stays overnight because "Bibiche" is fragile. She gets along well with her brother-in-law Bernard who, at night, works at the Ancel spinning mill in Granges-sur-Vologne and who, during the day, collects wood and takes care of his son, "like a daddy". She agrees to say that she sometimes accompanied Marie-Ange and Bernard in the car. "Where were you going then ?" Murielle Bolle: "Pff that's far."
And was Sébastien in a car seat, strapped to the back ?
“I think he was in a car seat or a booster. I don't know what your questions are about."
When Sébastien was in the car, how did you take care of him ?
"Well he always had little Playmobil and we took that with him."
The gendarmes have a very precise idea behind their heads and which did not escape Murielle Bolle. Because according to his original confession of November 2 and 3 1984, repeated to Judge Lambert on the 5th, if her brother-in-law Bernard Laroche came to pick her up when she left school on the day of the crime with his 305 gray-green Peugeot, it was surely to take care of "Bibiche", sitting in the back. Because he has something to do and risks missing the car. Moreover, if we are to believe the very first statements of Murielle Bolle, when Bernard, twice, leaves the vehicle to pick up Grégory in Lépanges then take him out in Docelles, the teenager turns around and tickles "Bibiche". But that is old history that she would like to see erased forever. Consequently, “on the facts of October 16, 1984”, Murielle Bolle sticks to her second version, the one she has been using since her retractions of November 6, 1984:
“I was in college. I took the school bus back to Aumontzey. Then I went up to Bernard's aunt, Louisette Jacob, and then that's all."
During your confession, you had given elements which are corroborated by certain testimonies, that seems disturbing to us. I remind you of course that the objective of our questions is to find out in what circumstances Grégory was kidnapped, to identify who could have harmed him and the responsibilities of each in this case. There is no question of "charging" anyone, simply that the truth be established, it’s time.
But Murielle Bolle does not see how that concerns her: "I have no spontaneous statement to make..” She easily thwarts trick questions about the route taken by Laroche and the place where he parked at the top of Lépanges: “No, I have never been there.”
You said that Bernard came back with a child wearing a beanie on his head. How could you make it up if you hadn't seen it ?
Irritated, Murielle Bolle reiterates her denials :"No, I didn't. I have never been there with Bernard. I took the school bus ... I didn't say that. It was the Bruyères gendarmes who typed everything."
The adjutants continue:
You had indicated that Bernard had returned with Grégory and that you thought he was taking him to a friend of Jean-Marie [Villemin].
"No. I did not say that."
"Bouboule"
Were you surprised that Bernard Laroche came to pick you up from school and called you 'Bouboule' ?
Murielle Bolle denies: "He never came to get me".
The adjutants raise their voice:
Okay, Mrs. Bolle, but you know the gendarmes can't invent your nickname !
Stubborn, the key witness continues to accuse the officers of the time:
Because they asked me how Bernard called me.
However, long before explaining these details of the kidnapping, the young Murielle had poured out herself with her aunt Louisette Jacob, following her discovery in the diary of the little boy's death. This is what Judge Simon will recall :
this "lady", Louisette Jacob, "simple-minded but endowed with good sense and an excellent memory and incapable to lie, [… ..] three times recounted Murielle had confided to her after the crime, "crying a lot, a lot", that she was in Bernard's car with Sébastien and Grégory, that Bernard had gone down with the latter and had returned alone.
But on June 28, 2017, Me Teissonnière no longer wants to hear about this “abusively used testimony of Louisette recognized as suffering from mental disorders”. Nine hours have passed since the start of Murielle Bolle's detention. At 8 pm, the adjutants address the “pressures” of those around her. The morning of November 1, 1984, the gendarmes had come to the Bolle parents’ home, Jeanine and Lucien, to record the voices and to collect dictations, to try to identify the crow. Their daughter Marie-Ange and their son-in-law Bernard Laroche have been in police custody since the evening before:
“A family reunion is organized by your mother in Laveline-devant-Bruyères around the midday meal, remind the gendarmes to Murielle Bolle. Who was at the parental home ?"
Laconic answer: "There was mom and, afterwards, I don't remember everyone."
Finally, at 2:30 p.m., Bernard Laroche comes out of custody and joins them, then his wife Marie-Ange, released in turn, returns at 4:30 p.m. The gendarmes come back in the afternoon to question Murielle, a minor.
“I remember it well, yes,” she said today, “I told them that I took the bus when I got back from college."
Indeed,
the majority of your family agrees that, that evening, you did not speak. But several auditions let us understand that this family reunion made it possible to organize a defense around Bernard and you, and that on this occasion, your family put pressure on you. What do you think ?
Murielle Bolle reacts quickly : "Oh no, not at all!"
A contradiction between Laroche's statement on his schedule on the day of the crime and his young sister-in-law Murielle led the gendarmes to re-interrogate the teenager on November 2, this time at the Bruyères brigade. Because the driver of the school bus assured them that the teenager was not on board this Tuesday, October 16, and class friends have agreed. Confused, Murielle Bolle admits that she told them nonsense the day before:
“Yes, I lied to you, I did not take the bus."
Then she will reveal the role of Bernard Laroche in the kidnapping of Grégory. At that time, the gendarmes place her in police custody for the night, but not in a cell, on a camp bed with the TV because she is a minor and a witness.
The next day, they ask her several times "if she has told the truth”. She maintains. To the doctor who examines her, the kid says that everything is going well: "I'm better here than at home ! The gendarmes are my friends." In weekend, Judge Lambert cannot hear Murielle, witness number one, the investigators accompany her home on November 3, under the eyes of her brothers who hate the caps, then isolate themselves with her and her father in a room in order to make him read the testimony of his daughter: "If she said it, it's true", attests her father Lucien Bolle, who promises to the gendarmes not to disclose these confessions before the hearing of Murielle by the investigating judge, scheduled for Monday, November 5. Patriarch Lucien Bolle keeps his word. And, two days later, his daughter Murielle renews her detailed account before Judge Lambert, who probes her on the attitude of the gendarmes towards her, then takes her to retrace the route indicated: Bruyères, Lépanges, Docelles, Aumontzey. With this major testimony and written expertises, Judge Lambert ordered, that very afternoon, the arrest of Bernard Laroche, charged him with the assassination of Grégory Villemin, and sent him to prison. He does not take any measures of protection with regard to the young Murielle Bolle, who returns home, where it is not long in ringing the hallali against "the dirty redhead" and the "fake". This evening of June 28, 2017, Murielle persists in repeating, as to Judge Simon in 1989, that she
“was not the subject of pressure, nor beaten, nor threatened, nor manhandled, for having denounced Laroche”.
"I have never had threats from anyone," maintains the person concerned.
However, her sister Isabelle Bolle described the atmosphere at the house where, “around 7:45 pm, the whole family got together in the kitchen and discuss the matter ”. “I learned from my father that it was my sister Murielle's statement that was decisive for the rest of the investigation. He told me that Murielle was in Bernard's car the night of the incident."
Like an outcast, the youngest of the Bolle siblings is kept apart:
"We weren't discussing in front of Murielle. She was always outside and when she entered, we interrupted the conversation, we did not want to speak in front of her,” adds Isabelle Bolle.
But thirty-two years later, it doesn't mean anything to Murielle.
Did your father lecture you about your hearing?
- No.
How then to explain, to use the expression of a brother-in-law, that she "appeared traumatized and withdrawn into herself, contrary to her habit ?":
"It's normal, anyway, given how I was questioned by the Bruyères gendarmes ..."
However, that evening, some people witnessed the pressures that you were subjected to when you were 15 years old , persevere the two gendarmes.
"I was not pressure."
We remind her of his big sister Marie-Thérèse, who will also host her that night to extricate her from Marie-Ange's clutches. “Everyone was crying.
My sister Marie-Ange grabbed Murielle by the collar and didn't say anything then shook her while asking her: “Why did you say that, why did you say that ?” Murielle didn't say anything, she was crying. It was Marie-Ange who was attacking Murielle, she did not answer."
Today, Murielle does not remember it. So, the gendarmes tackle her:
We think that you have a selective memory to from the moment when these are sufficiently striking facts." "Your sister Marie-Ange had called you to account in such a way that Murielle almost committed suicide.
"It is true" but “because the gendarmes throw me under the train, they finally made me say that.”
The adjutants exhibit the declarations of Louisette Jacob, Laroche's aunt, and of her mother's nurse, Jacqueline Golbain, "heard six times" which “witnessed the 'rouste' [she] received from members of [her] family.”
“This is not true, it is only lies,” protests Murielle Bolle.
In view of the multiple testimonies, the investigators are convinced to the contrary: Your first confessions were indeed based on the truth that you then distorted in order to be able to protect yourself from your family. Which would be completely understandable for a young girl of 15 years old.
- "No, It's not true."
The two gendarmes try to take her with her feelings, to limit her brother-in-law's role to the kidnapping.
Question: Think about it. Do you know that Bernard Laroche could have been the victim of manipulation by a third person ?
Answer: “It's not Bernard, anyway. He was there when I got home from school.”
In desperation, the adjutants play on the sensitive chord of this mother of a family: Bernard Laroche was good with you, don't you think that for his memory and that of Grégory Villemin, who would now be 37 years old who could to know the happiness of parenthood that you are lucky to know, it is time to tell the truth ?
Walled in her disavowal, Murielle Bolle launches: "I told you the truth !"
His lawyer immediately flies to his aid: "This question has already been asked by President Simon and could be asked endlessly."
Before letting Murielle Bolle speak for thirty minutes with her partner, Me Teissonnière wishes to lock the third hearing of his client, to whom he addresses:
"Do you remember that you had the State condemned in 2002 for dysfunction of justice and gross negligence, and that the 1993 judgment was considered by the Versailles Court of Appeal as the outcome because of all the errors and shortcomings of the investigation, and that this judgment is the breeding ground on which today's interrogation is based ?"
Murielle Bolle replies: "Yes.. "
And the gendarmes ask: "What is the purpose of your question, master ?"
"Those who worked out today's questioning fit completely within the framework of this logic ”, shouts Me Teissonnière, approved by her client. The adjudicators found this allusion to legal excesses very obscure.
The hearing ends at 10:10 pm. The next morning, at 6:45 am, Murielle Bolle has to explain herself about domestic violence. Hours and minutes are counted, because custody must end at noon. But, according to her, her parents were "not severe" and did not inflict her injuries... "no beating."
Do you know what the word correction means ? inquire the gendarmes.
Yeah, it's hitting, but no, retorts the ingenuous.
Did your parents own a swift ?
I do not remember.
You don't remember much, even benign things!
Pfff.
Do you remember if the couple Marcel and Jacqueline Jacob came to Aunt Louisette's house ?
Pfff. I'm telling you that I haven't seen them much !
Weren't you deprived of food and sent outside ?
You still take my parents for I don't know what.
No, we are asking you questions that are not due to chance.
I'm sorry but it is.
Were you afraid of your father, were you afraid of him ?
No.
It seems that not everyone has this idyllic vision. He is described as a "violent madman" who did not hesitate to wield the swift and the belt against your mother and you, the children, and who deprived you of food. What do you think ?
Pfff, pfff ..
The cousin
Do you know F. Patrick ? - No, that doesn't tell me anything. However, he's the son of Marcelle Lavallée, the sister of Murielle's mother, and therefore "a direct cousin" who came "on vacation punishments" to her parents. “It doesn't mean anything to me,” says Murielle Bolle.
On June 15, 2017, seeing on BFMTV the arrest of the couple Jacob turn in a loop, Patrick F., 54, whose days are numbered and who travels in a wheelchair, contacted the investigators of the Grégory affair to bring them "revelations". A godsend for the gendarmes of the Dijon research section, in search of family secrets. Heard on June 17, he remembers that
“the whole family went up” to the Vosges, at his aunt Jeanine Bolle's, after the drama of “this little kid in the water” which “stunned and marked” everyone.
“But not as much than Bernard when he was taken into custody,” he adds. When the robot portrait of a suspect came out in the press in October 1984, Patrick F., then 21, and salesman of Hachette books in Moselle, had made "a connection with Bernard Laroche".
"He looked a lot like him. But it was taboo, we should not talk about it for fear of being “mistreated.”
However, after Laroche's first police custody, the Bolle family, including him, did not believe in his involvement:
“For us and for me, it was a mistake because it was not possible knowing Bernard. [..] where it was the shock was when we saw him come out of the factory with the “handcuffs” on November 5.
He also learns of Murielle's declaration “which makes him go to the closet (prison).” Her family is “scandalized”, but does not yet know “the ins and outs”.
“We were wondering what she had done like madness to go talk about her brother-in-law.” The family therefore went to the Bolle's, in Laveline. “And there, when we arrived, we fell right on an unbearable scene, a "lynching" of my cousin Murielle."
The officer who records his statement asks for details on what he calls "a lynching" by members of his family."
"In fact, she took a lot of slaps by her father Lucien, this family dictator, my aunt Jeanine also hit Murielle, because she was in a black anger, and the person who shook her the most was Marie-Ange, who shouted to her: "You sent your brother-in-law to prison !"
And then "she was locked in a room of the house; a lawyer arrived, a big one."
On photo, Patrick F. recognizes Me Paul Prompt, lawyer of Laroche, who calmed the father after a last "slap".
He directed Murielle "on the trail [...] because the youngster had an interview with the journalists and she should not have her cheeks full of tears".
This is probably the interview on November 7 by Murielle Bolle with reporters in front of her house, given the tenor of her words reported by her cousin: "Bernard is innocent, the gendarmes forced me ..."
Deprived of dinner, Murielle "spent her evening outside, sitting on the steps of the house".
In his statement, the cousin gets confused about the dates, between November 5 and 8, situating the presence of the lawyer on a day when he was not there.
One of Murielle's lawyers call the cousin a "mythomaniac". Re-questioned by Judge Barbier, Patrick F. will admit that he could “have made a mistake by one or two days”.
According to Patrick F., he went out to see her and criticized her for her attitude:
"Look at the consequences that it took. Bernard is in prison, the family is completely broken, it is a real tragedy which is happening."
At that moment, says Patrick F., "she took my hand, she swore on her mother's head that Bernard had come to pick her up after school, that they had. little Sébastien with, Bernard's son. Bernard stopped far from a house with the 305, he left on foot and he came back with the kid in his arms. She told me moreover that she had seen the kid playing on the pile of sand”, a priori just before, when their vehicle passed in front of the house of Grégory Villemin's parents.
"He carried the kid, she saw him, and he put the kid shortly before arriving at the car and he took him by the hand."
Cousin Patrick continues: "There, they left at point X, I can't tell you more, and he gives the kid, that is to say Bernard comes back without the kid."
The officer intervenes: "Let us agree, that was Murielle Bolle who told you the night she received the slaps ?"
Patrick F. confirms it. That evening, he asked Murielle if "she had drooled over it in police custody, if the gendarmes had been really aggressive", he reports: " No, they were nice." "The cousin deduces that the 15-year-old girl" felt confident "with the investigators".
She told him that she "didn't think it would take on such proportions."
This man, who has served time in prison, is he trying to redeem himself ? Does he feel guilty about Murielle,
treated by her father "a dirty whore, a bitch" insulted "also by her mother who "did not give her daughter a gift to save the other""[Bernard Laroche].
Patrick F., maintains that "this treatment has lasted the time of Bernard Laroche's imprisonment, and even after, when Bernard died, it was worse than anything because her father took Murielle by the hair and brought her close to his body, and he said to her: "Look at him, it’s you who put him there."
At this moment, Patrick F. starts to cry and blames himself for not having supported his cousin: "I sincerely want, because I am ill, to apologize to Murielle. It's sincere. Moreover, in this affair, there were three deaths: the little one, Bernard and Murielle who was killed by his own family”.
He depicts her in pain: "Excuse me, but Murielle was already born under a bad star because she was redhead, plump, her nicknames were "dirty redhead", "faux-jetonne", "Bouboule", and it's cruel that this thing happen to her again."
Patrick F. wants to empty his bag because this story haunts him: "I often think about it and if everyone explained a small part, it would not have been thirty-three years."
Question: "Did Murielle show any bruises or something concerning this violence ?"
"Yes, her cheeks were very red, her hair had been pulled out and if Marie-Ange had been alone, she would have massacred her."
Faced with the camera filming Murielle Bolle's turnaround in front of her parents' house on November 7, 1984, and with the reporters present, including Laurence Lacour for Europe 1, Murielle Bolle does not show any visible signs of blows on her face, but, indeed, his eyes are full of tears and his cheeks are scarlet.
Patrick F. says he has “nothing to gain or lose in this affair”. "It's been twenty-two years that I no longer see my family," he says.
He reiterated his words to Judge Barbier on June 27, the day before Murielle's arrest. There is only 4 hours and 30 minutes of custody time left, including the ordering of the minutes. At 7:30 am, for the fourth and final hearing, the adjutants submit to Murielle Bolle the scenes of violence reported by her cousin, and trigger her revolt:
“It's not true, I have never been beaten !"
No, her sister Marie-Ange has never ordered to say:
"You took the bus, and you stay in your position even if people have not seen you", as Patrick argues.
"No that's not true." As for the “only good advice” that her cousin wishes to give her “to let go and say, whatever happens, the truth, to relieve”,
Murielle Bolle does not care: “I have nothing to say."
Final attempt to unlock the key witness:
According to him, your cousin says there are three victims in this story, Grégory Villemin, Bernard Laroche and you. What do you think ?
Murielle Bolle pronounces her last words: "It is sure that there are victims but I said the truth when I said I took the bus. It's the truth."
Despite the supposed passive role of this 15-year-old girl embarked by her brother-in-law on a criminal expedition, justice had a heavy hand: indicted on June 29, 2017 for "kidnapping and sequestration, followed by death” of Grégory Villemin, she was imprisoned for five weeks before being released and placed under judicial supervision on August 4, 2017, under strict conditions (house arrest 300 kilometers from her home, in the Nièvre, ban on contact with the protagonists of the case or with journalists).
On July 29, a confrontation was organized between Murielle and her cousin. She had been sleeping in prison for a month, but she has stuck to her positions. Her lawyers, M° Teissonnière and Ballorin, intend to annul Murielle Bolle's police custody of November 1984.
Conversely, M° Moser, Chastant and Saint-Pierre, who assist Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin, expect that we:
"help Murielle Bolle to unlock and free her word": "Thus, she would free herself, she would free Grégory's parents, she would free society, and would probably benefit from a Non-lieu"
I think that Murielle, she changed her testimony and is sticking to it to this day, not because she was or is afraid of Marie-Ange or Marcel or other family members, but in order to protect herself. She changed the story to protect herself. Because when she was 15, after she has been to the judge, the family told her that she will be implicated in the murder, she will also be tried and accused. I am not saying she gave the insulin to Gregory, but she was implicated in the abduction, and therefore also guilty, and so she decided to change the story to protect herself, and keeps protecting herself