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French detectives have found DNA traces on evidence from a child murder case that obsessed the nation in the 1980s. The new evidence raises hopes that advances in genetic science could help identify the killer at last.
Gregory Villemin, a four-year-old boy, was found dead in October 1984 with his feet and hands bound in the Vologne river, near his home in a village in eastern France.
The gruesome discovery set off a dramatic chain of events that became known simply as 'the Gregory Affair' and gripped the French public, spilling more ink than any other crime in the country's 20th century history.
France looked on in horror as the prime suspect was later gunned down by Gregory's heartbroken father. The public reeled as Gregory's mother was herself arrested for her son's murder year's later - and then released again.
Now a new chapter is being opened in the saga - thanks to the possibility of pivotal new DNA evidence.
Jean-Marie Beney, state prosecutor in the eastern town of Dijon, said yesterday that DNA traces from a man and a woman were found on a threatening anonymous letter sent to Gregory's parents after the child's death.
'Your money won't give you back your son. That's my revenge, you bastard,' the author claimed in the letter.
The discovery is significant because the letter was one of a series sent by a mysterious figure who claimed to be the killer.
The writer, who became known as 'the Crow' because of a colloquial expression designating those who send unsigned letters, has never been identified.
Beney said that the DNA traces had been tested against those of Gregory's parents and they were not the same. The boy's mother, Christine Villemin, was once a suspect though she was cleared in 1993.
The decision to reopen the bags of evidence collected during the original Gregory investigation and look for DNA was taken by a Dijon appeals court in December last year, at the request of the boy's parents.
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