The crime was not far from perfect. The mysterious disappearance of a woman near Dunkirk, in June 2019, and the discovery of a corpse at the same time, in Breda, in the Netherlands, are one and the same affair, we have learned from the Dunkirk public prosecutor’s office. A sordid affair whose main suspect will never have to answer before an assize court, the latter having died before the investigators discovered the pot of roses.
The scenario imagined by Michel Hamilière, a 70-year-old man who lived in Hoymille, near Dunkirk, was Machiavellian to say the least. We are in 2019 and the couple he forms with his wife, Jocelyne, is struggling, not to mention a financial situation in the red. The man then builds a plan which, according to him, should allow him to solve all his problems. On June 22 of the same year, Michel Hamilière took action. He kills his wife with a bullet behind the head, undresses her, puts the body in his car and rushes towards the Netherlands. After driving for 1h30, he gets rid of the body in a field, near a canal which marks the border with Belgium. Michel Hamilière then returns home quietly to continue with his plan.
He receives his pension and sells his goods
To his entourage, to explain the sudden disappearance of his wife, he rides a huge boat. He assures that Jocelyne left him after discovering that he had been living a double life for years with another woman with whom he had a child. A version that seems to convince since no one tries to get in touch with the missing. In the process, Michel Hamilière hastens to sell property belonging to his wife and the couple to improve his financial situation. He also carefully avoids reporting her disappearance to the administration in order to continue to receive her retirement pension.
Bailed out, the septuagenarian however leads a closed life and devoid of social relations for a year, until karma reminds him. In July 2020, Michel Hamilière died at his home of natural death. As is the procedure in these cases, the gendarmes go to the home of the deceased for a routine investigation. It is on this occasion that they will discover the disappearance of Jocelyne Hamilière and learn from the mouth of the family the story imagined by her husband. Suddenly, an investigation is opened to try to locate the missing. In vain. It seemed to vanish in the eyes of the world and of the French administrations.
The link is made with a murder in the Netherlands
But the Dunkirk public prosecutor’s office does not drop the case and authorizes the gendarmes to search the couple’s home. In the house, there is no trace of the wife, except for her identity papers. A suspicious discovery, which calls into question the hypothesis of a spontaneous departure. Admittedly, the examination of the husband’s phone shows that he was very mobile, admittedly he was missing two cartridges in his rifle, but for lack of a body, it was impossible to link these elements to a possible crime.
The story could have ended there and no one would have known what had happened to Jocelyne Hamilière. Until all these elements made sense, in August 2021, thanks to the message broadcast by the French gendarmes on an international cooperation platform between police. The link is made between the disappearance of Jocelyne Hamilière and the discovery of the body of a woman, on June 22, 2019, by the Breda police. The DNA of the victim is that of the wife, that of her husband is found on the bonds used to bind his wrists and ankles, the caliber of the bullet corresponds to the rifle of the suspect and the video surveillance establishes that his vehicle was, a few hours before, at the place where the body was discovered.
Before an assize court, these overwhelming elements would certainly have led Michel Hamilière to prison for a long time. So there will be nothing. The fact remains that the work of the French and Dutch investigators has made it possible to solve this double mystery and to pay tribute to a deceased person whom no one else cared about.