A murmur of dread runs through the Parisian hall of La Bellevilloise (20th arrondissement), where some 250 people have gathered, masks on their noses, to listen to Marjorie Sueur enumerate, in a detached tone, chilling acts: "At the request of her future husband Paul Bernardo, Karla Homolka organized, on December 23, 1990, the rape of her little sister Tammy, then aged 15.
"This Tuesday, September 1, the criminologist examines the cases of two couples of murderers in a conference entitled" The Secrets of serial killers ".
Once the murmurs in the audience have died down, Marjorie Sueur resumes in her neutral voice: “During the night, Paul rapes and sodomizes Tammy, unwittingly drugged by her sister.
The young girl is found dead the next day, suffocated in her vomit.
A new thrill of horror in the assembly.
There will be others in the evocation of the recidivism of "Barbie and Ken" - the nickname given to them by the media at the time - or the equally abject crimes of Gerald and Charlene Gallego.
Between 1978 and 1980, this American couple kidnapped ten victims, mostly teenagers, to reduce them to the status of sex slaves, before executing them.
Infamous, unthinkable, revolting.
But captivating: sold from 10 to 15 euros, places quickly sold out, and the event was sold out.
American serial killers Charlene and Gerald Gallego were mentioned at a "Fever Talks" conference ./Zuma Press / Maxppp
"All Serial Killer Sessions are sold out until the end of the year!"
exclaims Panthéa Arjmandi, who is in charge.
Of all our
Fever Talks
, seminars on subjects as diverse as quantum physics, love or biology, this is the one that is the most successful.
And by far !
»The various facts fascinate the crowds.
Publishers, media and speakers have understood this well.
"The adult version of Grimm's tales"
Witness the release, on September 21, on France 2, of a documentary series on the Laëtitia Perrais affair, brutally murdered in 2011, at the age of 18, by the criminal already convicted of rape and violence Tony Meilhon.
This also attests to the summer success of the two issues of the magazine Society on the enigma Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, an ordinary father suspected of having shot his wife and four children in Nantes, in 2011, and who vanished into thin air. since.
The French rushed to this in-depth 77-page survey, the two parts of which have already been reprinted several times, bringing their circulation from 47,000 copies to 130,000 for the first, and 150,000 for the second.
Society magazine, which published a two-part survey on Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès this summer, had to reprint these issues in view of their success. / DR
Julie Lamie read them eagerly.
But for this account manager in the bank, her fascination with miscellaneous facts was born a good ten years ago with the program "Bring the accused", broadcast on France 2. "It's the one which goes the furthest in precision.
We understand in detail the progress of the investigation and the profile of the criminals.
»Since this first love, Julie has read everything, seen everything from" Criminal investigations "to" Crimes & facts ", on television, through the film" The SK1 Affair ", on the hunt for the serial killer Guy Georges.
"What interests me most in the news is the psychology of criminals," specifies Julie.
I want to understand why people come to this, to know what drove them to such atrocities.
Do they have the notion of good and bad?
"
PODCAST. Michel Fourniret: in the footsteps of a monster who has not revealed all his secrets
Establishing the profile of a criminal, Jean-Luc Ploye has made it his job.
This court psychologist has more than 13,000 expert opinions, half of them criminals.
The most striking are detailed in his book “The Approach to Evil” (Grasset), published at the end of 2019. He knows the public's fascination well: curious people have traveled more than 300 km to hear it, during the trial of Michel Fourniret, give his conclusions on the case of the Ogre des Ardennes, which the psychiatrist Daniel Zagury described, for his part, as "the most successful French serial killer".
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"The great news items are the adult version of Grimm's tales," explains Jean-Luc Ploye.
If they intrigue us, it's because, like children, we need to exorcise things, to scare ourselves with these mind-boggling stories in order to be able to reassure us afterwards, by telling us that none of this is ours. happened and, above all, that it will not happen to us.
"
Interest in criminals fuels interest in the expert, which the public and the media often seek.
“People want to talk to me because they are in a projection mechanism.
Through me, they get closer, but not too much, to what both captivates and revels them.
Like when they watch a documentary or read an article.
In a way, for the public, I am the armed wing of the meeting, the one who allows to demystify the incarnation of evil without having to deal with it directly.
"
If he refutes the term fascination, Jean-Luc Ploye describes himself as an addict: “Approaching people who destabilize our values to such an extent is a hard drug.
And I, who go into their psychic, emotional and family functioning to try to understand them, I am a bit addicted.
"
Detective improvisation is also a powerful attraction
On YouTube, amateur channels narrating various facts are multiplying, popularizing the genre among young people, whom television no longer attracts.
One of the most famous is that of Victoria Charlton, a 28-year-old Quebecer with a chubby face, who has nearly 500,000 subscribers and whose book, "Keep the eye open" (Les Editions de homme), published in January, was a hit with teenagers in France.
"I've always liked creepy stories, laughs the young woman, but the psychology of the criminal interests me less than unsolved murders, because then anything is possible, and I keep the hope that the person is always desire !
In the Canadian province of Ontario alone, there are 20 disappearances a day that investigators cannot fully address.
So it's possible they missed some clues.
"
To improvise a detective while diving into a closed case is another powerful attraction of the news item.
On the Internet, amateur investigators even have a name: the “Websleuths”, literally “web sleuths”.
Last year, Netflix dedicated the documentary series Dont F * ck With Cats to a group of them, their incessant searches online having helped find Luka Rocco Magnotta, "The Skinner of Montreal."
After posting several videos where he tortured and killed cats to get noticed, this extremely narcissistic young Canadian executed his lover in 2012, before dismembering him and mailing pieces of his body.
"It allows us to go and see behind the mirror"
Journalist Patricia Tourancheau, who has covered thefts, rapes and murders for Liberation for nearly thirty years, prefers the term "miscellaneous" to that of police-justice rubricarde.
"This corresponds more to all of what I deal with: criminal cases, banditry, fraud, terrorism ... While it has long been despised, considered the rubric of crushed dogs, the news includes a lot things.
It fascinates us because it shows us the dark side of ourselves, it allows us to look behind the mirror.
This is where its nobility lies.
"
Today independent, Patricia Tourancheau continues to dig this furrow.
She has written several books, among others on the crisp anecdotes of 36, quai des Orfèvres, the historic headquarters of the judicial police, and on the hunt for serial killer Guy Georges.
His book “Grégory - La Machination familial” (Seuil), published in 2018, earned him the hiring of Netflix to co-produce a series in five episodes on the subject.
Broadcast since November and soberly titled "Grégory", it was the second most viewed original documentary in France in 2019, reviving the feverish discussions on a case more than 35 years old that nothing seems to be able to close.
Who is this crow who boasts of having drowned little Grégory Villemin, 4 years old, in the Vologne region, after having tied his feet and hands?
And where does this jealous resentment come from that drives him to make some 800 vindictive calls to Villemin parents in a year and a half?
“Of course, the case of little Grégory seduces the public because it is the enigma par excellence, explains Patricia Tourancheau.
But I think what intrigues the most is this spiral of hatred, jealousy and gall, which swells for years to finally burst, and lead to the death of this innocent child.
This family tragedy, then marred by legal and media fiascos, conceals all the ingredients of humanity.
»Something to fascinate the crowds for years to come.
