The Dominici Affair

by Martin Kitchen

  This meeting marked the beginning of the final stage of the investigation, but it was not apparent for several months. Zézé Perrin; his mother, Germaine; Yvette; Gustave; and Gaston Dominici were questioned again and at length in May, but precious little new was revealed. The exception was that Zézé stated that Anne Drummond and her daughter had come to the Grand’ Terre to ask for water. Further, Gaston, Marie, and Yvette were there when they arrived. Yvette had filled up the Drummond’s bucket at the pump. Anne could speak no French, but Elizabeth had managed quite well. Yvette confirmed this story, mentioning that the Drummonds had a canvas bucket and that Gaston had shown his goats to Elizabeth.

  Asked when he had first heard of the crime, Zézé replied that Faustin Roure had stopped at La Serre at about 7:00 a.m. on his way back from the Grand’ Terre, where he had been to check the landslide, but Roure denied that he had told Zézé about the murders. Zézé claimed that he went to the Grand’ Terre, looked at the dead bodies, and was told that Gaston had gotten up at 3:00 a.m. and Gustave at 3:45 a.m. He claimed that Gustave, having discovered Elizabeth’s body, had told Yvette and had then gone to look at the campsite. He also stated that his grandfather had said that when he heard the shots in the night, he thought that the campers might have been attacked.

  Germaine Perrin confirmed her son’s statement that Anne and Elizabeth had gone to the farm to get water. Thus, it was reasonable to assume that Elizabeth had seen Gaston. It was also highly likely that Gustave had been at the murder site several times during the night, long before the time he initially claimed to have gotten out of bed.

  In mid-May Jean Ricard, the man who had been camping at Ganagobie and had passed by the Grand’ Terre at about 7:00 a.m. on 5 August, was questioned by Sébeille in Marseille. He added some important details. Even though he was on foot, he claimed not to have seen the overturned camp bed by the gorse bushes on the other side of the road from the Hillman. Nor did he notice the trail of blood across the road. He said that his eyes were fixed on the car and the “incredible mess” at the campsite. Not seeing anyone around, he went and peeped inside the car. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He saw an empty camp bed placed parallel to the car, and lying on the ground alongside it was a “human form” covered in a blanket, with the head facing away from the farmhouse. The person was lying on his or her back, fully covered except for the feet, which were pointing in the air. Ricard thought it an odd way to be sleeping, but being anxious not to miss the bus, he went back to the road and caught the bus about 100 yards beyond the Grand’ Terre. Amazingly the gendarmes did not bother to question the bus driver, nor did they track down any of the other passengers. Ricard said that he saw no one at the farm, but Yvette said that she had seen someone with a rucksack walking along the road. He had turned around frequently and then took the bus.

  Sébeille had met Ricard the previous August, at the beginning of his investigations, when he had gone to Ganagobie to talk to Father Lorenzi. He had asked Ricard a few questions but incredibly had neither taken any notes nor interrogated him in any detail even though he was clearly a key witness. Even more extraordinary Sébeille did not see fit to question him again for nine months.27 Ricard’s evidence was critical. He had found Anne lying on her back, with her uncovered feet in the air, parallel to the Hillman. The police had found her lying face down among the tall grass, fully covered, and at some distance and an angle to the car. There was a seat from the Hillman pressed against her left leg and a khaki-colored blanket under her legs. This difference clearly indicated that the body had been moved between about 7:00 a.m. when Ricard saw it and 7:15 a.m. when the two gendarmes arrived.

  To make absolutely sure on this point, Sébeille returned to Lurs a few days after seeing Ricard to check Faustin Roure’s testimony. It will be remembered that Roure had visited the Grand’ Terre on the morning of the crime to look at the landslide on the railway line. He repeated the testimony that he had seen Anne’s body lying beside the Hillman, but he was unable to say which way it was lying because it had been fully covered by a blanket.

  Sébeille concluded from these two testimonies that the body had been moved twice. The first time was in the roughly fifteen minutes between when Roure’s party left to go to work and Ricard’s arrival at the scene of the crime, when the feet were uncovered.28 Next, after Ricard left, the body had been turned over and moved into the tall grass before the gendarmes arrived about fifteen minutes later.

  On 9 July Sébeille once again questioned Zézé Perrin, with whom he had not spoken since early May. He brazenly admitted that although no one had asked him to do so, he had lied to both the judicial police and the gendarmerie, but his new version of events was equally implausible. He now claimed to have gone to the Grand’ Terre on the morning of 5 August on a bicycle belonging to his cousin Gilbert, Clovis Dominici’s son. He had parked it beside Gustave’s bicycle, which was propped against the mulberry tree. When asked why no one had seen it, he gave the unsatisfactory answer that he had moved it into the shade at 11:00 a.m. (A gendarme noted that the spot indicated by Zézé would have been in full sunlight an hour later.) He also now claimed that Gustave Dominici had sounded the horn of his motorbike as he passed the Perrins’ farm at about 8:30 the evening of 4 August. His mother, Germaine, had left the farm on her moped at 9:00 p.m. to go to La Cassine, near Peyruis, where her husband was a tenant farmer. Zézé then claimed that Gustave had returned to La Serre, having met Germaine on the way, and told him about the landslide.

  Sébeille suspected that Zézé might have then gone with Gustave to the Grand’ Terre, but this he hotly denied. He insisted that he had stayed home alone and gone to bed at 9:15 p.m.

  Sébeille interviewed Germaine Perrin the next day. She confirmed that she and her son had had dinner together, but she denied having met Gustave as she rode toward Peyruis. She added that had Gustave gone to La Serre, he would probably have taken Zézé with him to the Grand’ Terre as the two were very close and the boy had often slept overnight at his grandfather’s farm. It might therefore have been possible that Zézé Perrin had been at the Grand’ Terre during that fatal night in August.

  The Dominicis’ attorney, Pollak, meanwhile protested vigorously that Sébeille had no need for rogatory authority, because no new evidence of any consequence had been produced for several months. Indeed, the investigation seemed to be getting nowhere. In fact, Sébeille and Examining Magistrate Périès were planning their final assault but felt they needed time for further thought and reflection. Their reasons for delaying action beggar belief. They decided that the idyllic summer in Provence should not be disturbed by an intensified police investigation. The roads would be packed by traffic, the beautiful hilltop villages teeming with happy tourists. The crops would be harvested under the blazing sun. It would be far too hot to think straight, and the bistros would be awash with pastis. Then came the wine harvest, which should not be interrupted by anything other than an act of God. Clearly then it would be inappropriate and unpatriotic not to wait until after the celebration of Armistice Day on 11 November. Regardless that they had not found such compelling reasons for taking time out during the previous summer, Périès and Sébeille decided to suspend the inquiry until 12 November. Then they were determined to attack in full force, break down the Dominicis, get a confession, and secure a conviction.

  By this time the investigation was no longer a subject of much interest in the newspapers. So many issues of great import were taking place: the disastrous defeats in Indochina, the armistice in Korea, the trial of those involved in the June 1944 massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane, the spectacular act of parricide with an ax on Îsle Saint-Louis in Paris, the death of Stalin, the conquest of Mount Everest, and the coronation Queen Elizabeth II.

  In the Dominici family, life seemed to be getting back to normal. Gustave’s wife, Yvette, gave birth to her second child in May. There was a wedding in the family. In September Gaston took part in the opening ceremony of the road to the abbey at Ganagobie. He was
politely but reservedly greeted by most of the local dignitaries, but the prefect of the Basses-Alpes refused to shake his hand.

  The inquiry’s final dramatic stage began on 12 November 1953 with another visit to the crime scene. At 6:00 a.m. the gendarmerie closed the road past the Grand’ Terre by the order of Commandant Bernier from Digne and Captain Albert from Forcalquier. Commissioner Sébeille arrived forty minutes later. At 7:00 a.m. the Hillman was taken from a garage in Peyruis and parked where it had been on that fatal night in August the previous year. The camper Ricard and the SNCF workers—Roure, Boyer, and Clovis—were brought to the scene of the crime. The motorcyclist Olivier and Dr. Dragon arrived shortly afterward.

  Despite the roadblocks, a large crowd of locals had collected. Some thirty journalists and an equal number of press photographers were present. Film crews from Les actualités V and Fox Movietone were on hand to record the proceedings. A peanut vendor did a brisk trade.

  The arrival of the police prompted a violent reaction from the inhabitants of the Grand’ Terre. The normally passive Gustave broke into a furious rage. Yvette, by now a mother of two and already pregnant with a third, threw herself onto her bed and began to sob bitterly. The habitually mute old Marie hissed through her toothless mouth: “Why take it out on us? Why don’t you ask that motorcyclist? One day I’ll kill him!” Only Gaston remained calm and collected.29

  The first question addressed was the position of Lady Drummond’s body. Boyer, Roure, and Ricard said that she lay parallel to the car, on her back, about 2 yards away. As they had previously stated, Roure insisted that the blanket covered the feet, while Ricard was adamant that the feet were uncovered. Clovis first said that the body was lying face down, diagonal to the car, at some distance; but then he changed his testimony to concur with that of Boyer and Roure. Gustave insisted that he had found the body in the position as his brother had first stated. Faced with this obvious contradiction, he finally admitted that he had moved Anne’s body.

  Gustave was then ordered to stand where he had flagged down Olivier in the early morning of 5 August. Gustave stood slightly more than 50 yards from the car and on the edge of the main road. Olivier was then ordered to drive past. Once again he flatly denied that Gustave had been standing there, insisting that he had emerged from behind the Hillman.

  At 10:00 a.m. the road was reopened for traffic, and Gustave was taken to the law courts in Digne along with his brother Clovis. They left behind a hysterical Yvette, a weeping mother, and a raging Gaston. Roure, Olivier, Ricard, Paul Maillet, Zézé Perrin, and his mother, Germaine, were also taken to Digne, while Gaston, Marie, and Yvette Dominici remained under police surveillance at the Grand’ Terre.

  Sébeille first questioned Gustave alone in the library at the Digne courthouse. Gustave was seated, while Sébeille walked back and forth, firing questions at him. After a few moments Maillet was brought into the room. He calmly repeated what Gustave had told him: Gustave had seen the murders and had heard screams. At first Gustave denied this, then he admitted to having heard some cries but only for a very short time. He flatly denied having seen anything and insisted that he had not gotten out of bed.

  Gustave was then confronted with Zézé Perrin, who also stuck to his story. He had been told not only that Anne and her daughter had come to the Grand’ Terre and asked for water but also that Gustave had gotten up at 3:00 a.m., had seen Elizabeth’s body, had then told Yvette, and afterward went to look at the campsite. Gustave admitted that his wife had told him that the Drummonds had come to the farm when he was not there. He had been working for Yvette’s uncle, Jeannot Girard, and returned to the Grand’ Terre at about 8:00 p.m. He was now prepared to admit that he got up at about 4:00 a.m. and not at 5:30 a.m., as he had previously stated. It was then that he had seen Elizabeth, who was still breathing but with great difficulty. She was lying on her back with her arms outstretched. Although he had then seen the Drummonds’ bodies, he had not gone to the campsite until 5:45 a.m. and now claimed that he had not touched them. He insisted that Anne’s body was perpendicular to the car. Sébeille then asked what he had done between about 4:30 a.m. and 5:50 a.m., when he stopped Olivier and told him to inform the gendarmerie. Gustave claimed to have looked after his livestock.

  By this time Gustave was beginning to fall apart. Red in the face, trembling, and scarcely able to talk, he finally admitted that he had gone back to the campsite “to get a better idea of what had happened.” When asked why he had not told the truth before and why he had not sought to help the little girl, he mumbled something about being afraid of getting involved in what was clearly a very nasty business.

  Gustave’s interrogation by Sébeille lasted until 7:00 p.m. Meanwhile, the examining magistrate Périès questioned Ricard, Roure, and Olivier. All three stuck to their original versions of the story.

  Gustave’s grilling resumed at 8:30 p.m. Sébeille immediately went on the attack, insisting that Ricard, Roure, and his brother Clovis had all testified that Anne was lying on her back with her feet in the direction of the Grand’ Terre and that she must have therefore been moved between 7:00 a.m. and 7:15 a.m. Gustave was trapped. After repeatedly spluttering that he knew nothing, he finally broke down. He said that after Clovis and Ricard had left for work, he had taken Anne by the ankles and turned her over, dragging her to where the gendarmes had found her. He claimed that he had done so to ascertain whether she was still alive. Finding this explanation totally implausible, the commissioner decided to call it a day and resume questioning in the morning. It was now a few minutes before midnight, but Gustave claimed that two inspectors continued to grill him until the early morning. In fact, he spent a sleepless night in an armchair in the library, with two gendarmes keeping a close eye on him.

  Gustave’s cross-examination resumed next morning at seven thirty, while Périès ordered the gendarmes to bring Yvette, Germaine, and Zézé to Digne for questioning. Although claiming not in any way to be superstitious, Sébeille could not help noticing that it was Friday the thirteenth. For whom was it to prove an unlucky day? Yvette flatly denied that any of the Drummonds had visited the farm on the evening of 4 August. She refused to change her testimony even when she was told Gustave had admitted that she had said they had been there. Germaine and Zézé stuck to their original testimony. Yvette also remained adamant.

  Oddly Sébeille did not keep a record of his examination of Gustave, which lasted until 10:00 a.m. He told Gustave that it was unthinkable that he had taken such risks moving Anne’s body, simply to make sure that she was dead. Gustave then said he had done it to see whether there were any cartridges or bullets that had come from the farm. He said that he could not find any and therefore assumed that there was no connection between the Grand’ Terre and the murders.

  Périès took over from the commissioner at 11:00 a.m. From the minutes of this meeting, we learn that Gustave merely repeated what he had earlier said to Sébeille.30 He claimed never to have seen the murder weapon. Gustave also told Périès that after he was released from prison in December 1952, his brother-in-law Jacky Barth had told him that Gaston had found four cartridges at the murder scene. Périès, however, did not even see fit to mention this revelation either to Sébeille or to the gendarmes.

  Getting no further, Périès decided to hand back the interrogation to Sébeille. The commissioner realized that he was on the point of getting a confession. He began to feel a certain pity for Gustave, who appeared to him like a cornered beast, waiting for the deathblow. Within minutes Gustave broke down in tears. Resting his head on the commissioner’s shoulder, he blubbered that his father had admitted to him at 4:00 a.m. on 5 August that he had committed the crime.

  Sébeille went to get Périès at 4:30 p.m. They returned to the library with the clerk of the court. Gustave made a full confession, punctuated only by his sobs and the remorseless hammering of the typewriter as the clerk took down his statement. He testified that he had heard his father get up at about 1:00 a.m. Thinking this very strange,
Gustave also got up to find out what he was doing. Assuming that Gaston had gone to have a look at the landslide, Gustave walked toward the bridge. When he reached the edge of the orchard, he heard the shots. He had then gone back to bed. When his father got up in the early morning of 5 August to tend his goats, Gustave got up earlier than usual to ask him whether he had heard the shots during the night. Gaston said that he had, adding that he had fired them. Gustave said that after being awoken by the shots he had been unable to go back to sleep. He had heard no further sounds in the house until he heard his father’s footsteps at four o’clock. The implication here was that having fired the shots shortly after one o’clock, Gaston must have stayed outside for about three hours; otherwise, the sleepless Gustave would have heard him entering the house.