Justice declared on Wednesday July 15 that the acts alleged against the great-aunt of Grégory Villemin, suspected of being one of the crows who harassed the parents of the little boy killed in 1984 in the Vosges, were prescribed, his lawyer reported.
Jacqueline Jacob, indicted on October 24 for “criminal conspiracy”, had seized the investigating chamber of the Dijon Court of Appeal to contest the prosecution. She noted during a closed-door hearing that “the acts alleged against Jacqueline Jacob are time-barred because they are crimes,” explained her lawyer Frédéric Berna.
The indictment of the octogenarian, suspected by an expert of having written in particular the anonymous letter claiming responsibility for the assassination, “falls de facto by the observation of the statute of limitations”, he estimated, denouncing “a huge error of assessment”. “We will have seen everything in this case in terms of procedural aberrations,” continued Mr. Berna. “Concretely, there is no element on the merits which allows us to consider that Jacqueline Jacob participated directly or indirectly in this affair,” he assured.
Despite this new setback, little Grégory’s parents, “Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin remain calm”, according to their lawyer François Saint-Pierre. “We are now awaiting the results of the ongoing DNA and Stylometry examinations. We will then know who they are incriminating, he said. The Court of Appeal will therefore decide whether or not to re-indict the Jacobs this time for the crime of kidnapping and murder of little Grégory”, not covered by the statute of limitations. “The important thing is to go to the end of what is possible so that the truth is established,” added Mr. Saint-Pierre.
On October 16, 1984, Grégory Villemin was found drowned and tied up at the age of four in the Vologne River. An anonymous letter was sent to his parents with the words “Here is my revenge. Poor bastard.”
From the start of the investigation, the investigations were oriented towards the fierce hatred which would have existed between the Villemin clan and the Jacobs, the family of Grégory’s grandmother. Jacqueline Jacob and her husband Marcel (a brother of the grandmother) have constantly denied any conflict and any role in the death. After several stages in this case and despite their denials, they were indicted in 2017. The proceedings were canceled for formal defects.
In 2025, a new expertise estimated that Jacqueline Jacob was the author of the letter of claim, which opened the door to the new indictment.
