Almost thirty-seven years after the start of the affair, many mysteries still hang around the disappearance and murder of little Grégory Villemin. Today the boy should have turned forty-one.
We are on August 24, 2021, forty-one years ago to the day, Grégory Villemin was born. A playful little boy, he grew up peacefully in a village in the Vosges, in Lépanges-sur-Vologne, with his parents, until that terrible day in October 1984. Around 8:30 pm that Tuesday, firefighters recovered his body without life, hand and foot in Vologne, seven kilometers from the family home.
Read also: Grégory affair: expertises reveal who the raven is
Since her brutal murder, France has witnessed countless twists and turns, shattering friendships, a family. To date, the murderer (s) of little Grégory have still not been identified, despite the notable progress made by forensic science. If this case continues to fascinate decades later, it is mainly because of its seniority, the circumstances of the murder and the unprecedented media frenzy to which it was the subject. Many procedural errors accumulated from the start of the investigation, to the point that this case often serves as an example among the worst failures of the French judicial institution.
Since the advent of new technologies, a large number of “civilians” have improvised investigators and are trying to solve the case. Facebook groups gather thousands of members, like Grégory Villemin case, an enigma towards the truth or GREGORY AFFAIR = STATE LIE?.
The Villemin family put to the test
From the outset, the investigations were largely focused on the family of the little boy. As declared to BFMTV the lawyer of the Villemin couple in 2017 during a press conference: “We have known from the start that the heart of this business is intrafamilial.” Under pressure from journalists and investigators, the family has been shattered on several occasions, with each accusing the other of taking part in the heinous murder of the child, aged four at the time.
The Villemin couple has nevertheless rebuilt their lives, and welcomed three other children. Julien, born in 1985, Émelyne, born in 1990 and Simon, born in 1998. Today, little Grégory Villemin should have celebrated his forty-first birthday.
Missing children: time stands still
Little Grégory’s body was discovered shortly after his death, but this is unfortunately not the case in all cases of missing children. One of the best known in France remains that of Estelle Mouzin, this nine-year-old girl who disappeared on January 9, 2003 and whose sadistic shadow of Michel Fourniret, a notorious serial killer, seems to hover around. More than eighteen years after her disappearance, Estelle’s body has still not been found, leaving her parents in an impossible mourning. She should have celebrated her twenty-eight years on June 29, 2021.
To read also: Estelle Mouzin: in the Ardennes, last excavations in the presence of Monique Olivier
On the side of our English neighbors, the Maddie McCann affair has also never known an outcome, whatever it may be. Disappeared during the evening of Thursday, May 3, 2007 in Praia da Luz in Portugal, the child has never been found. A few months ago, the investigation took a new turn when a Portuguese woman said she saw the girl in a supermarket “Three or four years ago”. In 2020, the investigators.ices finally identified a suspect considered “serious”, Christian Brückner, a German of forty-four, already convicted of rape and fascinated by “children”.
Four years old at the time of her disappearance, Maddie McCann should have turned eighteen this year.
A journalism student, Barbara is currently doing a work-study master’s degree and writes on parenthood for the Aufeminin Maman, Parole de Mamans and Avis de Mamans websites. She is also …