January 25, 2009
 |
 |
|
Céline Jourdan, age 6, went
missing from her home in the tiny village of La-Motte-du-Caire. |
The Murder of Céline Jourdan
by
Anthony Davis
One hot summer's evening in
1988, little Céline Jourdan went missing. Her father raised the alarm at 9 p.m.
but her body was not discovered until the following afternoon, only a few
hundred yards from the village. The pathetic corpse had been clumsily hidden
under branches alongside a peaceful mountain brook. Céline had been raped and
her skull smashed with a rock. It was the 27th of July, only weeks before her
seventh birthday.
 |
| Gilbert Jourdan |
 |
| Didier Gentil |
 |
| Richard Roman |
In the tiny Provençale village of La-Motte-du-Caire
(population 350) feelings ran high. Gilbert Jourdan was well-known and popular,
the owner of the local bar. He was separated from Céline's mother and the little
girl was spending part of the summer vacation with him.
From information given by a witness, who had seen him
playing flipper (pin-ball) with Céline in her father's bar, the gendarmes arrested 25-year-old Didier Gentil, who had recently arrived in
the area. He was what the French call a propre-à-rien (good-for-nothing),
a hobo with previous convictions involving sex and violence. Born of alcoholic
and violent parents, he was the archetypal criminal. It was as if his life
history had been pre-programmed: petty crime, mindless violence, sexual
deviancy. A psychiatrist described him as being "at the limit of mental
debility" and as a character incapable of coping with any thwarting of his
immediate desires. Paradoxically his surname means "nice" in English.
Following accusations from villagers the
Gendarmerie
also arrested and charged 29-year-old Richard Roman, a goatherd – recluse,
homosexual, vagrant, and sadomasochist. Roman, nicknamed "The Red Indian", was
the ideal suspect: anti-social, deviant; an intelligent (IQ 130), an educated
man who had squandered his opportunities by dropping out of university and
becoming a hobo. But nothing was "known" against him. In fact, the only way they
could keep him in custody was to charge him with possession of a few grams of
marijuana.
Each prisoner accused the other. Gentil admitted the rape
(forced to do so, he claimed, under pressure from Roman) but accused Roman of
the actual killing. Under intensive questioning – including, he claimed, a
beating – Roman cracked and signed a statement admitting to both crimes. A
psychiatrist described him as a self-destructive personality who took a grim
pleasure in being disliked. He later withdrew the confession after a journalist
who had interviewed him in prison smuggled out a statement to defense counsel
proclaiming confidence that DNA tests would clear him of the charges.
The press unleashed a campaign of fury against the two
accused and the public responded with predictably blind prejudice. In and around
La-Motte-du-Caire there was unanimous support for Gilbert Jourdan, and locals
swore vengeance. Céline's uncle, a magazine editor, used his publication to
launch a call for the return of capital punishment. A reconstruction of the
crime had to be cancelled when an angry mob tried to lynch the defense
barristers and when magistrate Yves Bonnet, convinced of Roman's innocence,
released him on bail in 1990, a gang led by Céline's uncle stoned the
courthouse.
While not condoning this behavior, one can readily
understand their anger. Such a crime against an innocent child is repulsive,
almost impossible to accept, and people experience the need for an indignant and
violent reaction. Céline's father himself, apart from the grief and disgust at
losing his daughter so brutally, must – subconsciously at least – have been
suffering torments of guilt. The little girl had been in his care and he had
failed to protect her. He desperately needed the cathartic outburst of hatred
against her supposed killer in order to try to wipe out the inadmissible blame
and shame.
Most of the vehemence was aimed at Roman. Even though
Gentil was an unpleasant character, people could easily understand why he had
become a criminal and had ended up a rapist and murderer. He was of low
intelligence and had experienced a dreadful childhood under a violent and
alcoholic father and an incapable and neglectful mother. He was unemployed –
unemployable even – and had nothing going for him. While no one exactly
sympathized with him they could see why he had become what he was. As for Roman,
on the other hand, he had enjoyed all the benefits of a middle-class upbringing
– good education, comfortable and loving home background – and had thrown it
back in society's face. Such waste deserved punishment in itself.
An incongruously farcical aspect was introduced into the
case when Roman, freed pending the trial, was assaulted and accused Gilbert
Jourdan. The latter, in turn, sued Roman for slander.
The judicial procedure was intolerably ponderous.
Although, as in the United States, each defendant has the right to a speedy
trial, in France an overload of work, administrative errors and plain
incompetence often drag things out. Five different
juges d'instruction
(examining magistrates) conducted the case in turn and it was four years before
the case eventually came to court. In an attempt to take the heat out of the
situation, in view of local animosity, the trial was heard at distant Grenoble
instead of at the local courthouse of Digne. Ironically, this in fact only
served to increase the already bitter resentment felt by the locals.
From the start it was obvious that the chances of a fair
trial were slim. Gentil – and particularly Roman – were considered guilty before
being tried. During interrogation by both the Gendarmerie and examining
magistrates (with the exception of Bonnet) there was no question of the
presumption of innocence and Richard Roman was forced into the position of
proving he was not guilty. According to one sympathetic journalist, the pieces
of the jigsaw were put in whether they fitted or not.
The trial itself soon turned into a condemnation of
homosexuality rather than of murder. It was alleged that there was a sexual
relationship between Gentil and Roman, and the prosecution line became "homo=pædo=pervert=killer".
At one point, Gendarmerie evidence even gave details of the size of the
two prisoners' erect penises, at which the Président (Judge) lost
patience and demanded to know who had ordered such data to be collected. He also
felt constrained to point out to the jury that one could be homosexual without
murdering children. It was refreshingly clear that one person, at least, in the
courtroom was not prepared to be influenced by bigotry.
Despite this unexpected ally, things looked black for
Roman in the face of such unbridled prejudice, even though the only hard
evidence produced against the pair was Gentil's sperm found on the victim. There
was nothing tangible whatever to incriminate the goatherd. Gentil's evidence had
been full of vagueness and contradictions whereas Roman steadfastly claimed his
innocence. But all hope seemed lost as the trial entered its last day, the time
for summing up by prosecution and defense lawyers.
Suddenly, after weeks of seeming like a particularly
sordid but straightforward murder case, the trial turned to drama. At the
resumption of the hearing, Gentil requested, and was granted, permission to
address the court. He started by apologizing for having wasted the court's time,
his excuse being that he was a pauvre type (a weak-minded and
irresponsible person). And then, to everybody's stupefaction, he confessed to
the charges against him, craved forgiveness from Céline's family and exonerated
Roman completely.
He claimed another psychiatric examination as he now
believed there was a possibility that he had only dreamed about Roman's presence
at the scene of the crime and of his participation in the murder and that he now
realized he might have been mistaken.
The public reaction was predictably melodramatic: Céline's
mother broke down in tears and begged the two accused to tell which of them had
killed her child. Gilbert Jourdan called on the judge to force the truth out of
Roman while André Jourdan, Céline's grandfather, yelled at Roman, "Confess, you
bastard!" This triggered off such pandemonium that the judge had to clear the
court. It was clear that the disruption was due not so much to the
acknowledgement of Gentil's guilt but to the unimaginable concept of Roman's
innocence.
When everyone had calmed down and the proceedings could
resume, Rosemarie Jourdan, the grandmother, called for a minute's silence in
order that Céline's memory should not be sullied. This courageous action took
the sting out of the situation. In the midst of all the disturbance, Richard
Roman had remained silent but at this point he turned to the old lady and said
with quiet dignity, "I understand your distress but I am entirely innocent."
After such a turn-around, the summing-up and sentencing
constituted an anti-climax. Gentil was condemned to 30 years imprisonment and
Roman was cleared of all charges.
This case was just one of many that raised serious concern
about the functioning of French justice: an investigation too prolonged and
laborious, too much credit given to spurious evidence from supposedly expert
witnesses such as gendarmes or psychiatrists, the influence of press
campaigns and local rumor and above all the anti-gay prejudice. Worst of all,
no lessons were drawn from a history of legal injustice and later cases were to
show that this judicial blindness was to continue.
Post-script
As if to emphasize the total wrongness of this case, in
1997 Gentil was charged with a murder committed two years before that of Céline;
his victim, a young man, had been raped and his skull crushed with a rock. Then
in 2004 a television documentary claimed the existence of an anonymous letter
written in 1988 by a doctor, which had not been used in evidence, but which
seemed to implicate Roman in the rape and murder. Despite this evidence Céline's
father has been unable to succeed in getting the case re-heard. It is now
unlikely that he will ever be able to do so as Richard Roman died from an
accidental overdose of drugs on June 23, 2008.
Glossary
Gendarmerie:
A sort of rural police, although they are in fact a military unit derived
from the ancient gens d'armes (armed men) who historically upheld the
law.
Juge d'Instruction:
In France, when a serious crime such as murder is committed, the Procureur
(District Attorney) appoints a juge d'instruction (something like a
one-man Grand Jury) whose function is to conduct the inquiry and instruct the
police as to which witnesses to interview, what evidence to gather and which
suspects to interrogate and arrest.
