Murielle Bolle, key witness of the Grégory affair, proclaims her innocence

"I'm not the one we say." While his book Break the silence * next week, Murielle Bolle, key witness in the Grégory case, wanted to recall in an interview with Parisian this weekend she was "innocent" and she was not "the monster that we describe".

Murielle Bolle is one of the key actors in the Grégory affair, named after this little 4-year-old boy who was found dead in the icy waters of Vologne, in the Vosges, on the evening of October 16, 1984. Even today, this 34-year-old case continues to be righteous and has not yet been completed, despite the reopening of the investigation for over a year.

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We have to go back in time to understand why investigators have always been interested in Murielle Bolle. When the investigation began in the fall of 1984, the girl who was only 15 years old accused her brother-in-law, Bernard Laroche, of kidnapping little Grégory. In front of the investigators, she tells a "walk" on the day of the tragedy, until Vologne with Bernard, his little nephew Sebastien and Grégory. "Bernard got out of the car holding the child in his hand. He moved away. He came back alone, "she told the gendarmes. The parents of the sacrificed child believe to hold the murderer. The judge of instruction of the time Jean-Michel Lambert also. But three days later, the teenager retracts. "Bernard is innocent," she says to the press. Since then, she has never varied in her statements.

the Parisian When asked about this famous October 16, 1984, she "says it and repeats it": that day, Bernard Laroche and his son Sébastien were at Aunt Louisette's, where she stopped after school. "Everyone must understand that this is the truth," insists Murielle Bolle. "I could never hide such a crime, it's horrible," says the woman who will turn 50 next year. "If I knew something, I would say it. Even if it tore my heart and it was Bernard, I would say it. But it's not him, "she says. Bernard Laroche was killed in 1985 with a shotgun by Grégory's father, Jean-Marie Villemin. He had been indicted by Judge Lambert who was about to dismiss the case at the time of his death.

Today, Murielle Bolle says she wears "the guilt of her death" and again charges the investigators of the time who interrogated her. "If I had not been afraid of the gendarmes' pressure, their threats, and that I had not said what I said, maybe he would still be alive," she says. . According to her statements at the time, they threatened to place her in a correctional house if she did not testify against Bernard Laroche. What the people have always challenged. "Obviously, they will never recognize it. It's my word against theirs, "she says 34 years later.

A "liar" cousin

Yet some elements have questioned his word and the gendarmes suspect today to have had a role of accomplice in the kidnapping of the child. While the investigation is relaunched in 2017, the testimony of a cousin, a certain Patrick F., suggests that Murielle Bolle was pressured by her family to retract and that she was a victim of violence, overnight the arrest of Bernard Laroche. "All he said was anything," she says today. "He's a liar (…) I do not know why he went to tell such bullshit. He was not at my parents' house that night. " The cousin's testimony sent her to jail and was indicted for "kidnapping followed by death" in June 2017 before she was overturned this year for procedural reasons.

While The Parisian Reminds her that she remains under the threat of an indictment, Murielle Bolle can not imagine meeting one day in a court of badizes. "Because I did not do anything wrong," she says again. "But if there is a trial, I will fight." For this mother, this case "broke her life". "I had the longest custody in history: it started in 1984 and ended 33 years later (…) I was forced to stop school," says t -she. "I had to give up my professional dream of becoming a pastry chef. Even today, I have trouble finding work. "

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Murielle Bolle regrets that this affair also broke her relationship with her sister Marie Ange, the widow of Bernard Laroche. In September, the latter had expressed in the press to denounce a useless and painful investigation. Still in the Parisian interview, Murielle Bolle talks about her difficult pretrial detention in July 2017 and how her incarceration "blew up" her relationship. At the same time, Justice Lambert was ending his days, as he could not bear the reopening of an investigation that will have had a profound impact on his life.

Murielle Bolle was released in early August 2017 to be under house arrest in the Nièvre. A few months later, last April, Murielle Bolle was allowed to return home. Thirty-four years after the fact, she "does not know" if the case will one day be resolved. "There were so many mistakes in this case … But I hope we will know the truth," concludes the one who returned to settle in his native Vosges.

* Break the silence, by Murielle Bolle and Pauline Guéna, published by Michel Lafon. To be published on November 8, 2018.