A composite portrait, a nickname… And that's about it.
For 35 years, the identity of "Grêlé" remained an enigma.
A criminal enigma that ended last September with the suicide of a 59-year-old man, François Vérove, whom his DNA was about to betray.
This story, which investigators have long believed to be hopeless, began on May 5, 1986 in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.
That day, Cécile Bloch, an 11-year-old girl, was raped and killed in one of the basements of her building.
A strange man, seen by locals on the upper floors, drew particular attention.
His robot portrait highlights a physical peculiarity - marks on the skin - and gives it a nickname: the "Hail".
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This man will be rife for several years in the capital and in the Paris region.
In 2001, DNA will thus make it possible to link the murderer of Cécile Bloch to another double murder, that of Irmgard Muller and Gilles Politi, committed in 1987. To these murders is also added a list of six rapes ... without counting the suspicions that weigh on other unresolved cases.
But the "Hailed" remains untraceable and his last known crime dates back to 1994, when he kidnaps and rapes an 11-year-old girl, who will finally manage to escape.
The victim's testimony is valuable since it describes in particular the car in which the man removed her, and explains that he presented her with a police or gendarme card.
An element common to several other testimonies.
The judge convinced that "le Grêlé" is a former policeman or gendarme
The case changed definitively a few months ago. The examining magistrate Nathalie Turquey, who has acquired the conviction that "Le Grêlé" is a former member of the police, orders the summons of several hundred former gendarmes, who lived at the time in Paris or in Paris. Parisian region. On the program in particular: an audition and a DNA test, in order to compare it to that of the killer.
At the other end of France, in La Grande-Motte (Héraut), a certain François Vérove is one of the recipients.
This 59-year-old former gendarme and police officer, who leads a peaceful family life by the sea, understands that the investigators are going to make the connection between him and "Le Grêlé".
He then rents an apartment in Grau-du-Roi, writes a letter in which he admits to being a "great criminal who committed unforgivable acts until the end of the 1990s", without giving further details.
In the process, he commits suicide.
DNA will then confirm one thing: François Vérove and the “Grêlé” are one and the same, lifting part of the veil over 35 years of mystery.