31 coups de couteau, le crime oublié de Saône-et-Loire | Crime France

So in 2005, a miracle for me, a true

miracle, we got a police officer, and he

worked tirelessly, he did a tremendous amount of work.

The police officer, his name is

Raphaël Nedilko. It's thanks to

his determination that the investigation will be successful.

Raphaël will go through the entire file from the first

page to the last. The

first page, after all, starts

in December

1986. It's not easy to

take over a file after 25 years, when you're left with the

imprint of

broken things. There are

yellowed scraps of paper at the bottom of a box.

Nobody cares. It's a bit of a

punishment at first, actually. RFA

Nic says to himself, "Okay, okay, let's go." [

Applause]

[Music] Let's

try. Is there a more terrifying

nightmare for a mother

than learning one day that her 16-year-old daughter has just been

brutally murdered in

a cellar without being able to

help her? For me, I... I don't know. I

tried to create scenarios in my mind, imagining I could hear her

screaming, I could hear Christel

screaming, calling for help, yelling at

her. And as if this immense pain wasn't

enough, this mother had to

fight for almost 30

years because the investigation into the murder of her

daughter, Cristelle, almost never came to a head.

I kept thinking, there's a little girl,

she's dead, we haven't found anything,

and yet it's our job to investigate.

I had nothing, I had no one to help me in any way.

It's what you call a cold case,

a case that got lost in

the legal maze. We start from scratch, it's

a police expression. We start with nothing, meaning we have

nothing, no

DNA, nothing at all. The

police reports are yellowed, the photos are a

bit faded. We tell ourselves we have to find

other

avenues, re-establish contact with the family and friends, go

to the

scene. Who is Jean-Pierre

Murat? For me, he was

the murderer. He can fight any way he wants.

For me, he's the one.

Le Creusau, December 18,

1986. The Charmille neighborhood in Le

Creusau is still in shock. On the

regional news, all the

teams are mobilized. A young

middle school student has just been brutally murdered. It was

in the cellar of this building on

Rue des Capucines in Le Creusau that the

body of Christelle May was discovered, a

few hundred meters from her

home where she was returning late

yesterday morning. For almost 30 years,

this cellar where

Christelle May's body was found will be haunted by the death

of the young

[Music]

middle school student. Never could the residents of

Charmille have imagined that

CIT could be the scene of such a sordid

[Music] tragedy. You ca

n't imagine in Le Creusau

having a young woman killed with 33

stab wounds, a 16-year-old girl.

It's a shock, even for the

police. It's a crime. With

extreme savagery, Inspector

Toussial was one of the first to

discover the crime scene.

[Music]

30 years later, he agreed to

return with us to building

number

12. It was here, in this cellar, that one winter morning in

1986, he arrived with his colleagues

to conduct the initial

investigation. C's body was

found.

For the policeman, the memories

are still as vivid as ever.

[Music]

He hasn't forgotten anything, neither the position of the

teenager's body, which was on its

back, nor the smallest

details, like the schoolbag placed beside

her,

or the

[Music]

umbrella. The policeman also remembers

immediately ruling out robbery and

rape. Her small purse wasn't stolen;

everything was

there. Her clothes weren't in disarray;

they were normally fastened and

buttoned. However, the young girl

seemed to have experienced extremely

violent hunger. She had a

shoelace around her neck, and her body showed more than 30 stab

wounds. She had been taken by

surprise. What could have happened? What he did was he put

a lanyard around her neck, he

held her so she wouldn't scream, he

stabbed her, she fell,

he continued to grab her wrists,

and then he took her under the shoulders

and pulled her to put her

here because she had marks from her

heels on the ground. Then her

jacket was pulled up under her

armpits inside her school bag,

notebooks with a name written on each

label, that of Christelle May, a

9th-grade student. The young victim is a resident of

the housing project; she lives in building 11, about

a hundred meters from the restaurant. The

police officer had to tell

her mother, Marie Pichon, the terrible news. He didn't

speak, he didn't say anything,

why? Since it was me who asked them

questions about my daughter, Christelle. Yes, but

where did I go? To the hospital? No, I went where?

He didn't answer me. It was a very difficult moment

for

me. What is she? Where is she? But he did

n't answer me, and in the end, I said she was

n't there. The hospital, she

might be dead,

yes, she's dead.

[Music]

After, well, I banged my head against

the walls, there were three of them holding me down. I had

a fit of I don't know what,

but then nothing.

[Music]

Nothing. Who murdered

a 16-year-old schoolgirl, Chrissy May, with 31 stab wounds?

[Applause]

The investigation is proving difficult because in

the cellar, the police found no

fingerprints or clues that could

lead them to one or more

murderers. Despite their searches, the

investigators haven't discovered the murder weapon.

They called in the fire department

to search the mouths for tastes, but

in

vain. You have to understand that, well, we don't have

surveillance cameras, we don't have

cell phones, we don't yet have DNA, which is

only just starting to be known in England,

but which hasn't even arrived in

France yet. About thirty years ago, we did

n't have the technical means that

exist today and are used by

the

investigative services. Our investigation is a

field investigation; it's about doing what we The procedure

is called the "

snail principle": starting with the

victim's body, the investigation expands to include the

neighborhood. Experts and investigators first

examine the bicycle storage room, and what

intrigues everyone is the

contrast between the criminal's rage, which

resulted in 31 stab wounds, and

the atmosphere of the

crime scene. It's a rather astonishing scene because it's

peaceful: there's no

blood, no

blood spatter, no trace of blood, and

the clothing absorbed it. Since the

clothing was dark,

the blood wasn't immediately visible. Nothing

in the cellar had been moved; nothing had shifted. The

bicycle, which was within the

victim's reach, was still

leaning against the wall; it wasn't locked.

The dust hadn't been disturbed;

the dust in the room hadn't been moved. There was

just this body,

placed there as if by some

unnatural means. Another puzzling question is

why Christelle entered

this cellar. What was she doing there? It

seems, in any case, that she had little to no reason. It's likely

someone forced her, because the young girl wouldn't have let herself be pushed around. A

sporty girl, certainly, very

thin and fragile, but sporty nonetheless, and with

a real strong

character. You shouldn't have messed with her.

We think she would have

screamed, she would have fought back if they had made her go

down. It takes

a certain number of steps to get

to that cellar.

If the young girl clearly didn't

try to escape or fight back, it's very

likely that she knew, at

least by sight, the man who attacked and

killed her. A retired neighbor

will confirm this

hypothesis. She's a somewhat elderly woman who

saw her accompanied by a boy,

whom she describes in great detail. So

this testimony, however

imperfect, gives us a

small

clue as to who this young man was who was

keeping Christelle company and with

whom she apparently entered

the

cellar willingly. Nearly 1,000 people live in the

Cité de la Charmille: retirees,

workers,

children. One by one they were

questioned, but it yielded nothing. The

police, at the time, thought, "Okay,

someone must have seen something.

It happened in broad daylight. It's a

place where people pass through, after all.

Unfortunately, it was

as if we'd run into a wall of

silence. No one said a word." So, had

people

really seen nothing? Were they

afraid? In any case, we

stayed anyway. We didn't make much

progress with the neighborhood investigation.

Everyone wondered if it was

their neighbor. Everyone suspected everyone,

especially the family, especially

Marie Pichon, who, as soon as she

left her house, wondered if it was so-and-so

who could

be her daughter's murderer. We saw

everyone, we thought, "Maybe it's him,

maybe it's them, maybe it's

those two, maybe it's them." We

always had the feeling we were running into the

person who killed my

daughter in the housing project. The charm is

the psychosis, the rumor spreads, and with

it, some tongues start wagging.

Christelle's boyfriend is

pointed at.

These slides were taken

the summer before the tragedy, in

July

1986. Here on the right, Christelle is almost

invisible.

Just behind her is Michel, her

boyfriend. They were at a summer camp together that summer,

and according to some, their

relationship was quite

chaotic. It was a romantic relationship,

but quite passionate, even though it was long-

distance. He sent letters, and

it's true that for a month or two, things had been

completely

different. Michel, who lives in the same

building as Christelle, could he have taken

the schoolgirl to the cellar, and if so, why?

The police will soon

find out. At the police station,

the young man is questioned

and must answer the

investigators' questions, which are not exactly

gentle with

him. He was interrogated by the police for

many hours in a

rather forceful manner. It's

true that These are the

police interrogation techniques

that existed in 1986 and still exist

today. You have to be careful, this isn't just

casual conversation.

[Music]

Their insistence stems from the fact that they believe they have the motive for the

crime. She was

a young girl, she attracted

boys, of course, so

Michel knew that too, through

friends, through his acquaintances. So, from

time to time, there were little

clashes between them. The only problem is that the

young high school student can't be

Christel's murderer because on the day of the crime, he was about

a hundred kilometers away in

Dijon, where he was continuing his

studies. But Michel will nevertheless

provide the investigators with a

new element, a new

lead, and little by little, he reveals

that Christel had indeed received

an anonymous letter indicating that

he, Michel, wasn't very serious and

that he had other friends,

other relationships, other conquests. Who

wrote this letter? No one will ever know

because

Christel would have

burned it. In any case, one thing is certain. A

blackmailer has just entered this

case, and it won't stop

there. Throughout the investigation,

other anonymous letters will sow

confusion at the

Creuseau police station. Testimonies

and detentions follow one after another. The lives

of all of Christel's classmates are

scrutinized. There were some

rather intense interrogations, even back then,

of classmates who were 15

years old and who ended up confessing on the

spot that it was them, when in fact it wasn't at all.

But these are kids who

were completely destabilized when

something like that happens in a

small, close-knit neighborhood where everyone knows each other. Everyone is

traumatized.

It has to be said, no

one in the victim's circle

had any reason to hold a grudge against

Christelle, and everyone agrees

on one point: the middle schooler seems

like a great friend,

a truly simple girl

like all girls her

age, who doesn't present any

problems. Christel She was a

middle school student like any other,

meeting her friends at school, having her

passions, passionate about

music, loving to swap records

with friends, a girl

very popular with her

school friends, her friends in the building, a

very lively girl, full of

enthusiasm and

desires. She didn't have any problems at

school, she had a lot of friends,

it's amazing how many friends she had!

No, she really was, she

really thought of herself as someone kind and

smiling. Up close, her friends thought of her as someone

who entertained a little.

So she was a completely

normal and natural kid, there was nothing wrong with her, she

never attracted negative attention.

And while neither the

residents of the Charmille neighborhood nor

the investigators can understand

the motive for this

crime, a witness will come forward.

[Music]

It is 11:30, half an hour after

Christel left. Alain Orvat, the postman,

is on duty at 5 Rue Foch.

That day I was doing my

usual route around... At

11:00 AM, I was at number

145 and a man coming from the other end of

the street, but passing in front of me, was

Alainvat. Nearly 30 years after the events,

he hasn't

forgotten. I was taking my mail and about to

look at it before going home when a

young man, B, came running out. He didn't

really push me, but he brushed past me very

closely. I barely saw him, and he did

n't apologize. A badly behaved young man, you know? Then

he moved on, stopped,

and continued

walking. He had a look, what we

called B, the look that was fashionable at the time,

which the singer Renaud had

popularized. It was long hair, a mop of hair around the neck,

and a jacket. He was a young, edgy type, you know?

And this post was almost hit

by this person, who was clearly

someone who seemed to be

fleeing and who was coming out of the

path that was... He arrived at the

crime scene at the convenient time, given the

time slot he provided. This

young man, who bumped into him, was in all

likelihood the one who had just

killed Christian May, who had abandoned his

body in the cellar. The young man

resembled the singer Renault. The

postman's description was rather brief,

but many years later it would help

to identify a

suspect. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was

February

1987, and Mo had been

killed after a harsh winter in Le Creuseau. The

snow had melted, and a key piece of

evidence was about to be

discovered: a

weapon, a knife, found a few dozen

meters from the

crime scene. A passerby

found the

weapon; his attention was drawn to

a glint. He approached a bush,

and it was then that he

discovered

the presumed

murder weapon. Here it is: a

switchblade with a horn handle and a

12 cm blade. There was no trace of blood or

fingerprints. Nothing was found on the knife;

the snow had erased everything. However, the

shape of the knife, the shape of the blade,

allowed experts to be

almost certain that this was indeed the

knife used by the

murderer to kill Christal Maie. No

trace, no fingerprint, but the blade of this

knife still spoke volumes because what

struck investigators was the

way it had been sharpened. It was a

knife that had been mutilated, that is to say, it had been

sharpened in such a way that it

was damaged. It had a blade that had

been sharpened in a completely bizarre, uneven way.

So,

it can be assumed that the knife was

sharpened not with a sharpening steel, but

rather with a grinding wheel or in a rather crude manner.

The police thought they finally had

a piece of evidence to

convict

the murderer. They released

a photo of this infamous notch to the local press

in the hope that a witness would

recognize it, but once again, luck was

not on their side. No

one Nothing

happens, and four years pass. It's

1990 in Le Creuseau. The investigation is at a

standstill. The mystery surrounding Christel's murder

remains unsolved and leaves a bitter taste.

I was thinking, "There's a little

girl here, she's dead, we haven't found anything, and

yet it's our job to investigate."

So we reach, I wouldn't say to the point of

feeling guilty, but

we begin to doubt, a feeling of

powerlessness. We start asking ourselves

questions, we tell ourselves that maybe we

missed something, that we forgot something, that something wasn't

done, or that some information didn't reach us.

Justice abhors a vacuum. In 1990, the

Chalon-sur-Saône prosecutor's office orders a

dismissal. The investigation

stops, and Marie, Christelle's mother,

learns this by discovering a letter

in her mailbox. "I received a

letter saying there was a dismissal,

not even

signed, nor was I notified, nothing. Dismissal."

[Music] [

Applause]

We're stuck and And that's it, it's over. We know

nothing. With the energy of despair, this

mother will then embark on

a long battle to discover the identity

of the young man who looks like the singer

Renault.

[Music]

April

1994, the famous Jacques

Pradel program, Witness Number 1, is dedicated to the

murder of

Christelle. There you go, I was just

talking with Madame, with Madame Pichon

who is here tonight. It's an

important effort you're making tonight.

Christelle's mother will overcome her

shyness; she is determined to

do everything to revive

the investigation and hopes that a witness will come forward.

Christelle, in fact,

really had an uneventful life.

She had an uneventful life: school,

sports, well, boyfriends, the

office, but she never went out.

So, when the program

aired, all of Christelle's friends, all of

Christelle's relatives from that time, were

glued to their televisions and listened

attentively to what was happening, and I

think everyone was hoping a little bit

that finally it would move

things forward. The one

who would be arrested almost 20 years

later for the Christelle May's murder

was also happening while she was

watching the program "Witness

Number

1" on TV. However, by the end of the program, no

interesting testimonies had come forward

to the switchboard of the famous

[Music]

Please. While we are plunged into

darkness, there are sometimes signs

that encourage us not to give up.

Reading the newspaper, I learned that Marie,

Christelle's mother, would find the strength to get back up

and continue her

fight. I had nothing, I had no one to

help me in any way.

It's complicated. Marie fought pretty much

alone all these

years until the day she opened the

newspaper and there was an article

telling another horrible story

that had also happened to another

young girl named Christelle.

So, of course, it affected her deeply.

She couldn't ignore this

article. Ten years apart, two

victims were murdered with the same first name,

Christelle. Their respective mothers

then created an

association, and very quickly,

other families joined them, whose children had

also been victims.

[Applause]

Sylvie,

Nathalie,

Carole,

Virginie, Vanessa, and now

Christelle May, who joins the

long list of nine unsolved murders

in the

Saelloire district—nine murders without a single

murderer being

arrested. This happened in 10 years. In 10

years, there have been nine murders. There are so many young

girls in the slammer, and not a single case.

So, when the

Christel association was created, all these families

said to themselves, "Well, we want to fight too, we want to fight,

and we'll be stronger together."

The Christel association was very,

very important to me, to

fight, to resist, morally,

psychologically, and all that. It's huge.

The association is multiplying its actions,

challenging the justice system, and this fight is not going

unnoticed. We may be small people, but we

make a lot of noise. What we'll say is that

the objective of these families is to use

scientific advances, because DNA has entered

the judicial investigations. However,

fate seems to be

conspiring against the Maer case because in the

judicial archives, in the box

bearing Christel's name, there are only

files with

yellowed pages. All the evidence has been

destroyed. We're starting from scratch. I want to

say, it's not a very nice expression, it's

a police expression. We're starting with nothing, meaning we have

nothing at this point. We have the file, it

exists, but We have more

C at once, her clothes are falling apart, the

knife will disappear because they wo

n't be kept in the forensic cells,

they'll be

destroyed. No more C, no DNA, nothing at all.

So we tell ourselves we have to

find other avenues, and we're

used to working without SC, we'll

find other avenues. Everyone

knows the devil is in the

details, so what about these little elements

that escaped the

investigators? Could they be hidden in the

victim's life? To discover this, we have to

look more closely at the family history.

[Music]

But by restarting the investigation from the beginning,

other leads that hadn't

been explored until now will be brought to

light, like this gas station where

her parents, who were gas station attendants, used to help out. Her

parents own a gas station,

so Christel often goes to help her

parents to earn

a little pocket money. She

fills up

people's gas tanks. Christelle was very

recognizable; she

had fiery red hair. You couldn't miss

her. A gas station, this place

It never aroused the interest of

investigators,

strangely enough, because the murderer might be

a

client. And this isn't the only

important element of Christelle's life that has been overlooked.

The young

schoolgirl and her two sisters

moved here to La Charmille just a

year before the tragedy. Incredibly,

they were practically the only girls in the

neighborhood. It's true that in this

area at that time there weren't

many girls, and when they

arrived, they didn't go unnoticed because they were

three girls—three

rather pretty, bubbly, lively girls. And

indeed, in the neighborhood, there were

many boys. For all these young

boys, whatever their age, they

were interesting. And at the time, the

young boys from the housing project had gotten into

the habit of meeting at the bottom of the

building where the sisters lived.

So, 20 years after the murder, the

Christel Association hired a

private detective to find

these young people from the neighborhood one by one. And then, a

dramatic turn of events: Christelle's ex-boyfriend,

remember Michel, was going to make a

revelation that would shake up

the investigation when I arrived at his place and

spoke From Chrystal May, suddenly there's a whole

film about it, he says, "

I see everything again, I see the whole

story again, Christel's ex-boyfriend

to the detective, a heavy secret never

revealed to the

police, one of the young people from the neighborhood supposedly confessed to him at the

time to being the

murderer, he gives me the name, who is it?

Jean-Pierre Mura." Jean-Pierre Mura, it's

the first time this name appears

in this

case, so who is this young

man? He was a boy who hung around

La Charme, having lived there before

Christel moved in, who came very

often to the bottom of

the building, and he was friends with

people from the building who came

looking for him to go out.

Michel says he never

spoke to the police because this story

is too painful for him. It's true

that Michel that day is really, he's

crying, he's

really traumatized, he's really in a

bad way at that moment. In 2003, Jean-Pierre M. had just turned

40, he still lives in Le

Creuseau, and the private investigator is going to To

find him, I'm going to see Jean-Pierre Mura at

his place directly, without even

calling him. I'll go

straight there, knock on his door, and a

guy comes in, a little groggy, well, he's just woken up,

and the first thing he says to me

is, "Have they arrested

the murderer?" I say, "Well, no, I'm actually

working on it." Then he

says, "You know, three days before the

tragedy, I had flashbacks. I heard

fights in the flashes,

screams. You know, I've been following the case for

years."

[Music] I'm

writing. And then he falls

silent, and that's it.

We're 20 years after the events. The

file has passed from hand to hand and

been scattered among different police

stations. So, as incredible as it may seem,

the

detective's report got lost in the

legal maze. We'll have to wait

years and for a new

investigator to arrive before the truth finally comes out.

Christelle

May, so in 5 miracles, for me it's a

miracle we had a police officer and he

worked, he did a

tremendous job. The police officer is him, his

name is Raphaël

Nedilco. It's thanks to his determination

that the investigation will

succeed.

Raphaël will go through the file from the first

page to the last page. The

first page starts in

December

1986, it's not easy to

take over a file after 25 years, when you

have behind you the imprint of

broken things, well, there are yellowed scraps of paper

at the bottom of a box, nobody cares, it's a bit of

a punishment at first,

actually, when Nic says, well, okay, okay,

let's try. As

his investigation progresses,

Chief Brigadier Nedilco rediscovers

elements that had been forgotten at the bottom

of boxes in different police stations,

like this photo of a tear found near

the crime scene,

or the report from the private detective

that gave the name Jean-Pierre

Murat. Could Murat be

the young man with whom

Christelle entered the

cellar on December 18, 1986? Jean-Pierre

Murat was 19 years old, according to the police. His

description could perfectly match

the profile of the killer.

He then realized that

Jean-Pierre Murat had lived in La

Charmille and associated with people

Christelle knew, but that at the time

he hung around the neighborhood

because he didn't have much

else to do. He was a boy who didn't have

much going on; he

was a bit withdrawn and

idle. His girlfriend at the time

criticized him for not having a

job and for

preferring to hang out with his friends. It should

also be noted that he had a

nickname: "Rap Cave" because he and

two others from the housing project had

broken into

cellars and

been quickly convicted for it. They were

quickly identified for it. You

know the drill. He knows his way around,

we know that criminals often

operate in a comfort zone.

He knows

people's movements, he knows the people. We don't see him

because we're so used to

seeing him there all the time that we don't

even notice him anymore. So basically, Jean-Pierre Mura

is in the crosshairs, in the eye of the

police storm, and a new twist will

reinforce the investigator's

feeling that he finally has a

culprit. October 2010: a blackmailer will make himself known again.

The criminal investigation department receives

a call

concerning the May case. It's been 25 years since

Christelle May was murdered, and 25

years later, the criminal investigation department

receives an

anonymous call. In the annals of the courts, in

all these cases,

we've never seen anything like it, especially since it's

not the first time the blackmailer has made himself known. For

25 years, he's been trying

to put the police on the killer's trail.

Dozens of phone calls and

anonymous letters, each time with the name of a

different murderer. [Music] It's a succession of names

that he gives in painting he

denounced that the young people of the

stairwell where Christelle lived to

discover the identity of the author of these

anonymous letters the police officer Raphaël

Nedilco compares the letters Raphaël

Nedilco will compare with the naked eye the

different

[Music]

letters and he finds

similarities always the same

tortured capital handwriting and the police officer

discovers that it is that of one and the

same

man Jean-Pierre Murat

[Music]

we can now say that Jean-Pierre

Murat is the crow of this case he is

the crow of this

affair we have the impression that he does not want

this case to die

he wants us to come and get him he is

playing he is playing the game of cat and

mouse in April 2011 the police officer Raphaël

Nedilco decides to take

Jean-Pierre Murat into custody the

police officer finds his suspect but not at

his home the man is interned in a

psychiatric hospital he has just assaulted Another

young woman with a

knife at a gas station—

it inevitably brings something to mind,

since Chrystel May's parents

owned a gas station and

Christelle May was murdered with a

knife. Indeed, when

investigators decide to

question him at that time, Mr.

Murat is hospitalized with a

diagnosed and confirmed psychiatric illness: schizophrenia.

Jean-Pierre Murat is

schizophrenic. Does this illness

make him a dangerous criminal

or the

perfect scapegoat? That's the question

the investigator will have to answer. Jean-Bernard's character

is quite peculiar; he can

swing from one extreme to another and has

flashbacks. He's, well, he's a bit

disturbed. When he's

hospitalized, doctors describe how, in

a complete crisis, he looks at himself

in the mirror and wonders if he's the one who

killed a young

girl. He attacks his mother with an axe, he

chases her with an axe, he attacks

his cousins ​​with a knife, he

attacks two gas station attendants with a

knife. So, when he attacked his

cousins, the police,

psychiatric services, and the

psychiatric emergency room

intervened.

Several nurses couldn't restrain him. It

seems that when he doesn't take his

medication, he has episodes that lead him

to be violent.

Even behind the walls of the

psychiatric hospital, the police officer who comes to

visit him is going to experience a strange

confrontation.

[Music]

First, he will deny knowing Christelle

Ma, saying he doesn't know CHR, he's never

seen her, he doesn't know who she is.

So how can we explain that this

man sent dozens of

anonymous letters, taking people for fools?

He knows the place, he must know

Christ Ma, and besides, he tells

the private investigator so. And he's playing games with everyone

when he tells the police he doesn't know her.

He's not entirely wrong, I mean,

but he's covering his

tracks, which makes his statements

absolutely astounding. That is to say, he says he didn't

know her, but he's going to

live with this story. In

fact, The story of his life, this murder of

Christel, indeed the investigator discovers

that for all these years the specter

of Christel's murder has haunted his

suspect, Murat. He has a real obsession

with this murder, even though he says

in his deposition that he barely

remembers this murder, that he didn't

know about it. CR Maerie, yes, he

keeps a notebook since the

events, where he puts down

press clippings, where he notes the people involved.

In short, he keeps a notebook, there's

a real notebook on this

case.

He will evoke this murder, particularly

in these notebooks, but at specific

moments when he is in the midst of a

delusional episode. I

wouldn't use the term "obsession,"

we agree. He

evokes it, and Jean-Pierre

Murat's fascination with Christel's murder will lead him to make

a mistake in front of the

police officer. He will describe—remember—the

clothing of the man with the

Renault look seen by the postman on the day of the

crime, during the hearing with Raphaël and

Dilco. Well, Jean-Pierre Murin said, "But

anyway, it can't be me

since I wasn't wearing a denim jacket.

How could Mura know this

information? Until then, it had

never been published in the

press, neither in the press nor on

Jacques Pradel's shows.

This mention of a

denim jacket only appears on the postman's report." He

said, "But how do you know

that this person was wearing this jacket

since it doesn't appear anywhere?" He

said, "Yes, yes, I watched the show,

witness number [number missing]." Wrong answer, because on

Jacques Pradel's show, no one had

mentioned this detail. Besides,

look, the fugitive, played by an actor, is

wearing a black leather jacket.

The investigator knows about this

denim jacket. There are only two people who

knew about it: the postman and the one

who bumped into him.

And that kills him, it confounds him, it kills him, as

we say in

police jargon. In parallel with the custody,

the police organize a

search of Jean-Pierre

Mura's home, and there the investigators make a

discovery... Murat is

passionate about bladed weapons.

[Music]

When the police

search

Jean-Pierre Murat's home, they discover an

absolutely unbelievable number of knives. He's a

real

knife collector; he

always has a knife on him. The

police seize some of these

knives. Sharpening a knife is

a bit like DNA; it's something

unique. It leaves traces on the

blade, and the wrist action of the person

sharpening it can provide a kind of signature.

For this

weapon, an expert will compare the knives

belonging to Jean-Pierre

Murat with the one in the photo of the

suspected murder weapon. I only had the

photo; I didn't have any other equipment, but it spoke to me; it

told me things. We'll do it

based on the photos. It's a truly

extraordinary analysis,

and the expert will identify the same sharpening marks. In

the jargon, we call them

stigmata. One or two of the knives I had

to examine that were seized

during the searches showed...

All the marks noted on the

photograph taken in

1986 during his police custody. Jean-Pierre

Mura will also admit to having

possessed a weapon similar to the

one used to kill Christel.

It is not disputed that he had a

knife, a similar knife like

many others, and he did indeed

indicate at one time, and although he had gotten rid of it, there is

another element that

incriminates Jean-Pierre

Mura: the man seems to know

perfectly well the precise location where

Christel was found

dead. Out of curiosity, he had in

fact returned to the scene of the crime, to the cellar,

10 years later. Jean-Pierre Mura indicates that he

urinated there and he shows the spot where

he urinated on the plan, which is the

precise location where Christel's body was found. Of

course, this raises questions; we wonder,

how could he have known it was that

cellar? How could he have known where the

body was located? This is

information that was absolutely not

secret

during his police custody. Murat

never confessed to Christel's murder, but

a series of clues

pointed to his guilt, such as the

sharp knife like Jean-Pierre

Murat's, or the cellar he

knew intimately, not to mention

the accused's obsession with

Christel's murder, and then there were the

anonymous letters. So, to try and

break Jean-Pierre Murat, the judge had an

idea: he decided to have him return to

the scene of the

crime. They didn't reenact the crime itself, but rather

his arrival in the cellar. Therefore, he was

given complete

freedom. The investigating judge

asked him to do what he claimed to have done

in the cellar: Jean-Pierre Murat

urinated in the spot he had indicated,

which was, once again, the place where

Christel's body was found. Of course, strangely enough,

a man who

would behave like that would do so against

a wall, not in the middle of the cellar. He

positioned himself in the middle of the cellar during

this re-enactment of the crime scene.

Murat said nothing more and, facing the

judicial authorities, proclaimed his

innocence. Inaudible innocence for

Christel's mother, present that day,

because for her,

Jean-Pierre Murat's behavior in that cellar

leaves no doubt.

We were directly where he was,

apparently. I didn't know where he

was, where my daughter

Christelle was. We were directly at the scene, in the very spot. That's the only thing that

can prove it was

him. For me, he is the murderer.

He can fight any way he wants, but for

me, it's

him. 25 years to the day after the tragedy,

Jean-Pierre Murat, 4 years old, is charged

with murder. The man is placed in

detention at the

Dijon prison. In June 2015, the trial for the

murder of Christel Maery opens before

the Assize Court of

Sonelleis. Jean-Pierre Murat will be tried

30 years after the events. It's a major

first in France, and for Christel's mother,

the confrontation with

her daughter's alleged murderer is

unbearable. We still imagine things in

front of him. He's there. And then I heard

Christel

screaming, calling for help when she saw

[Music]

him in the dock. Jean-Pierre Mura seems

completely oblivious to what's

happening. You almost get the impression he

's asleep. You don't even know if he's

listening to us, if he's even aware of what's going on. His

behavior is

strange, but he

maintains his position: he doesn't know

Christin May, he's never met him,

and in no way is he the perpetrator of this

murder. From the beginning to the end of the trial, he hasn't changed his tune. It's, "I don't know,

I don't know, it wasn't me,

I have nothing to do with this." I think he's

playing a bit of a game. Sometimes he can play the

victim, and sometimes he can

rebel. He switches from one system to

another very

quickly. The prosecution is advancing the

evidence one by one: the alleged killer's passion

for

knives, the anonymous letters,

the

crime scene. But all of this doesn't constitute

formal and irrefutable proof. That's

precisely the problem with this

case; in this case, we have no

certainty. The doubt must benefit the

accused, but this doubt

will not convince the

jury at the end of the proceedings. Jean-Pierre

Mura is found guilty and sentenced to 20

years in prison,

a sentence confirmed a year later on

appeal. Today, his defense is challenging this

judgment in the Court of Cassation. So, for

Christelle's mother, the fight is not over.

[Music]

[Music]