At the Périgueux police station, in Périgord, everyone knows Ghislaine Debeve. The little 75-year-old lady with red hair often passes by, presents her “Assistance and Search for Missing Persons (ARPD) investigator” card, sits down and explains her discoveries and theories to the police. Accustomed to it, they listen to it and take notes. Her hunting record is impressive: out of around a hundred disappearance cases since 2017, she has resolved around sixty. Retired for ten years, Ghislaine Debeve devotes around five hours a day to her research. Her two daughters would prefer that she find a more conventional activity: bridge, for example.
“I know they are afraid for me, but they wouldn’t dare stop me, she explains. When I’m on an investigation, I phone them to reassure them. Spending my life looking after grandchildren is not really my thing. » When she started visiting them, the police officers at her local police station didn’t know ARPD. “Now I am always well received, she recognizes. They know that I don’t want to step on their toes but just provide them with collected information that may be useful. »
Since the passion for news items, or true crime, has taken over the country, thanks to podcasts (“Crimes, true stories”, “L’Heure du crime”, “Criminal Chronicles”…) and successful documentary series (Making A MurdererGrégory, Don’t F**k with Cats…), ARPD does not encounter any difficulty in recruiting. While around a third of the six hundred volunteer investigators are former police officers, gendarmes or retired lawyers, the majority are ordinary citizens with no experience.
The association, created in 2003, searches for those who have disappeared. It is mandated by families, who complete a specific application, then are put in touch with a volunteer in their region. If the cases handled are of all kinds – criminal or not, recent or older, involving adults or minors – ARPD most often receives files deemed not worrying by the police. Understand: disappearances of adults who do not present any obvious criminal element and for whom the police no longer have time since the repeal, in 2013, of the search procedure in the interest of families, which allowed the opening in certain cases of official investigations. For loved ones, ARPD volunteers then act as a last hope.
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