FILE. Patricia Tourancheau, co-writer of “Insoupçonnable”: “Le Grêlé is an American-style serial killer”

Patricia Tourancheau et le cinéaste Élie Wajeman ont réalisé ce docu-fiction sur le tueur en série. DR

Patricia Tourancheau est co-scénariste de la série documentaire  sur le Grêlé diffusé sur France 2. Spécialiste de cette affaire impliquant un membre des forces de l'ordre, elle évoque cette histoire hors-norme. 

How did this idea for a documentary on the serial killer Le Grêlé germinate??

It is a case that was unknown to the general public until the identification of François Vérove, at the end of September 2021. I wanted to make a series based on my book (Le Grêlé, Le tueur était un flic, ed. Point). France 2 was hooked and gave us the means, Elie Wajeman, the director, and me to retrace this case in a documentary series with a fictional part.

Le Grêlé is still, in France, the serial killer who is out of the ordinary, he is out of the norm, because of his profession: gendarme in the Republican Guard from 1983 to 1988 at the height of his crimes against a little girl, rapes etc. and then he joined the national police.

An incredible double personality that is told…

I asked our expert psychiatrist, Daniel Zagury to give us an analysis of François Vérove's psyche. According to him, his split personality is huge, it's close to the Berlin Wall and he has the profile of an American-style serial killer. The expert didn't think it existed in France even though he examined thirteen serial killers.

They are often marginalized, not integrated into society, Patrice Alègre, Guy Georges, even Fourniret in his genre. Imagine: François Vérove was in a profession of order, a unionist, a father, a good husband who cooked, a municipal councilor in Prades-le-Lez, the good neighbor and good grandpa who drives his cart with his grandchildren along the beach in La Grande-Motte…

And on the other side, he is an XXL narcissistic pervert who has committed atrocious crimes.

The originality is precisely the psychiatrist expert, the common thread of the documentary. Why this choice ?

It's a bias. Everyone was frustrated that he committed suicide and that there was no trial and no psychiatric assessment of this type to decode it. This common thread of the psychiatrist also allows us to stop fairly quickly with the facts and fall into the gore, we try to remain modest and sober. The shrink raises the level, gives us food for thought on the evil and the construction of this character.

In the background, civil parties also mention 35 years of failed investigations…

Yes, one of the angles of the series is the failure of the investigation. But it is nuanced because the former investigators come to tell all the efforts they made, even if they know that it failed. Their testimonies even convey a sadness.

Indeed, in 1986, they were helpless in terms of technical and scientific police, we had blood groups, that's all that could be extracted from sperm at the time and group A + was 38% of the population at the time.

DNA was science fiction, France was ten years behind and the crime investigators had nothing to do with it.

The victims' families are wondering about the five-day deadline given by the police to François Vérove, then retired in La Grande-Motte (Hérault), before taking his DNA test in 2021 before his suicide.

Indeed, when they want to take samples very quickly and have the results, it is possible. It is true that Vérove was not specifically targeted but still, out of the 750 police officers taken at the request of the investigating judge, if there was the right one, we could expect that the guy would flee or kill himself. For me, it was necessary to go and get them all, early in the morning, and do the DNA test urgently. There, with the summons by telephone, they tell him that it is for old Parisian affairs… Apparently they are obliged to notify him..

What does the police answer?

The police chief answers that we can't just go and get 750 law enforcement officers in handcuffs in early morning, police custody is not an option. But it was worth it, the judge was convinced she was on the right track. And it was possible to target those who had career problems, Vérove was under arrest in September 86, he had been caught with a transvestite in the Bois de Boulogne, in uniform, with his weapon. Well, maybe it's easy to say it afterwards.

The documentary also mentions this policewoman who had the intuition that the killer was a gendarme…

Yes, in essence, it is the portrait of a judicial police force from the 80s, old school, old France, with the lords of crime on one side, on the other this brigade for the protection of minors and this extraordinary group leader, Annie Peaudeau, considered as a social worker, it is the “baby bottle” brigade.

She made the connection with 10 facts and had the intuition that this guy, who had a tricolor card and a holster, used typical police language. She scratched and when she mentioned the profile of the killer, they laughed in her face and said: “you describe 80% of the cops”.

Is the case closed??

The cold case unit continues its investigations, for the moment there would be no other cases since 1997, but it could come later. It could have really stopped in 1997, I tend to think so.

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