Initially, these were four photos published in the regional daily The voice of the North. Four teenage girls disappeared on a carnival evening, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais. It is February 1997. No one will see Peggy and her sister Amélie Merlin again, nor Audrey and her sister Isabelle Ruffin. After a few days of investigation, their bodies were found, buried on a beach in Camiers.
It is this investigation that tells This little piece of red fabric, a book* co-written by journalist Elodie Rabé and the former director of the judicial police, Romuald Muller. “More than twenty-five years after this affair, I keep the emotion intact and very strong. This story had a profound impact on me,” admits the police officer. However, in his career, the man experienced the attack perpetrated against a UTA plane in 1989, the Roubaix gang in 1996 and many other equally horrible blood crimes.
“Telling the story from the inside”
“I was a young father at the time and I transferred it to my personal life, something you should never do,” he admits. The time trial to find the four young girls, the arrest of the two suspects, Jean-Michel and Jean-Louis Jourdain, their interrogation and the discovery of the piece of red fabric in the sand: Romuald Muller has not forgotten anything of “this feeling of permanent nightmare”.
Now 60 years old, he nevertheless took out his notes and used his pen to “tell this sordid affair from the inside”. Relayed by journalist Elodie Rabé, specialist in news items, both deliver a story that dives into the heart of the work of the police. With, as a high point, the loophole which makes it possible to obtain the only confession from one of the two brothers. “If we had not found the bodies, the trial would have been different. »
A minute of silence at the carnival
The Jourdain brothers were sentenced to life imprisonment. Jean-Louis died in 2019 and his brother is still incarcerated. Since this affair, a minute of silence has been observed each year at the launch of the Portel carnival in which the four victims participated on the evening of their disappearance. “We wrote this book to pay tribute to these four girls and their mother,” explains Romuald Muller.
A tribute that still resonates in Boulogne and in this young man in his thirties who comes forward for a book signing, organized at the Fnac in Boulogne-sur-Mer. He only knows about the Jourdain affair through a photo. “My godfather had posted a photo of a girl in his home, but he never wanted to tell me who it was,” he says with emotion. I later found out she was one of the girls killed. It was probably his girlfriend. I would like to give him this book. Thanks for writing it. »
* Published by Michalon editions. 130 pages, 18 euros.