Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin at their home in November 1984. ERIC FEFERBERG / AFP
The author of a threatening letter sent to the family of the little boy murdered in the Vosges in October 1984 admitted to investigators that he was passionate about the case.
Originally, there was this letter sent to the parents of little Grégory, a 4-year-old boy whose assassination in Lépanges-sur-Vologne (Vosges) in October 1984 was the starting point of one of the most serious criminal cases. most emblematic of French judicial history. On this thin sheet of paper are marked these words of great violence: “I will make you the Villemain family again (sic). Next victim Monique“.
The letter, sent on July 24, 1985 to Monique Villemin, little Grégory’s grandmother who died in April 2023, had no signature. This was finally identified 38 years after it was sent, as indicated in Figaro by the Dijon Court of Appeal, which confirms information revealed by our colleagues from Marianne . Behind this menacing crow was a woman originally from Guadeloupe but living in Paris in the early 1980s. How could she be identified after so much time?
A woman convicted of fraud
Grégory’s parents, Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin, continued to receive death threats in writing after the death of their child, who disappeared while playing in front of the couple’s house and whose body was found tied up on October 16, 1984 shortly after 9 p.m. in the Vologne river. Some of these letters included DNA traces, most of which were unknown to the police. As part of new expertise authorized by the courts in January 2021 by Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin, this DNA was compared to data from the FNAG (National Automated Genetic Fingerprint File).
One of these DNAs ended up “matching” after several searches in “Parental DNA», confusing with her a woman convicted of fraud. The accused, who admitted to being the author of the threatening lines, confided to being “passionate about the issue», but denied having participated in the assassination of little Grégory. If this new discovery is far from resolving the case of the boy’s murder, it highlights the usefulness of DNA identification techniques, perpetually increased by scientific progress. “Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin believe and continue to believe in the fact that science, with its progress, is capable of providing them with answers.“, underlined Me Christine Chastant-Morand, the couple’s lawyer, to the Figaro.