The Dominici Affair

by Martin Kitchen

  Augusta Caillat, Gaston’s oldest daughter was the next to testify. A corpulent woman, she appeared to be confused and highly strung. Speaking with a pronounced stammer, she proclaimed her father innocent. She was forced to confront Clovis, whom she wrongfully accused of having denounced his father before Gustave had. She then demanded to know why he had accused their father. He replied that it was because Gaston had told him that he had killed the Drummonds. Even though she had not been present when Gaston confessed to Clovis, Augusta insisted that her father had said that “they,” not “I,” had killed three people and would kill another, meaning Paul Maillet. This revelation caused a prolonged stir in the courtroom.

  A further argument ensued over what precisely Gaston had said and continued over the question of whether the carbine had been kept at the Grand’ Terre. At this point Gaston interjected, “That carbine was never at the Grand’ Terre. The false witness who stands before us [referring to Clovis] knows very well where it comes from. We talked about it. My son-in-law Roger Perrin [Zézé’s father] said, ‘If I had had the carbine I would have killed the wild boar!’ You have in front of you the most discreditable witness.”8 To which Augusta added, “And the most cowardly.” Clovis simply shrugged his shoulders. The effect of this outburst was somewhat weakened when Gaston claimed that it was Clovis who had mended the carbine with a metal band. Clovis laughed off this claim, for it showed that the weapon had indeed been at the Grand’ Terre and that Gaston was well aware of its existence.

  Augusta’s husband, Clément Caillat, was the next witness. He dutifully claimed that Clovis had told him that he had never seen the carbine at the Grand’ Terre and that he suspected Paul Maillet.

  Two further witnesses were brought to the stand—Paul Deloitte and Germaine Perrin’s lover, Jean Galizzi. Both men testified that Zézé Perrin had asked them to give him an alibi, begging them to tell the gendarmes that he had come to fetch milk at 6:00 a.m. on 5 August 1952. On 29 January 1953 Zézé told the police that 6:30 a.m. he went to the Garcins’ farm, where his mother and father were tenants, to collect milk. Then Faustin Roure had arrived to buy a bottle of wine at La Serre and had told him of the murders at the Grand’ Terre. On 17 March Zézé admitted to a Sergeant Romanet that he had lied and that his mother had bought the milk. Then he promptly changed his story, claiming to have gone to Peyruis at 6:00 a.m. to fetch bread and milk. The dairyman told him that the milk had been picked up by Jean Galizzi and taken to the Garcins’ farm. Zézé promptly went to the farm, picked up the milk, and returned home to La Serre. Then Roure had appeared at 7:00 a.m. to ask if they had any milk. The dairyman’s wife, however, had no recollection of a visit from Zézé Perrin on 5 August and added that her husband had died in November 1951. Roure stated that he often went to La Serre to pick up some wine, but he could not remember doing so on the morning of 5 August. A few days later Galizzi told Romanet that Zézé’s story was a pack of lies.

  Gustave and Clovis were then confronted with one another. Both adopted a truculent manner and stuck to their recent versions of events. Bousquet asked Gustave whether he had accused his father. He replied that he had but that it was all a pack of lies. At this point Gaston said that it was Gustave who had repaired the carbine and went on muttering something meaningless.

  This unseemly family squabble, which the judge seemed incapable of controlling, reached fresh depths with the testimony of Gaston’s son-in-law, Angelin Araman. Having given a brief and pointless testimony, he turned to Bousquet and said, “Mister President, I want to clear the courtroom!” Bousquet asked him what on earth he was talking about. Angelin replied that there was someone in the courtroom whom he did not like and who had stolen a metal cart. Bousquet asked him whom he meant. Angelin replied that it was Paul Maillet. When asked what harm he had done, Angelin replied, “None.” In desperation Bousquet asked what this had to do with the Dominici case, to which Araman responded, “Nothing whatsoever!”

  Amid much laughter at this bizarre interlude, Angelin’s wife, Gaston’s formidable daughter Clotilde Araman, was called to the stand. She was in an ugly mood. She stated that she had never seen the carbine at the Grand’ Terre, adding that she suspected that it belonged to Paul Maillet. When asked why, she replied that Clovis had thought the same. Clovis flatly denied that he had ever suspected Paul Maillet. Gustave, when questioned on this point, said that he too suspected Paul Maillet. Gustave punched Clovis on the shoulder and, eyeball to eyeball, shouted: “You’ve lied too! I want the truth to come out today.” Fearing that they would soon come to blows, the judge called for order.

  Gaston demanded to know why Clovis treated him as an assassin. Clovis replied that he was simply repeating what Gaston had told him. Gustave yelled at his brother, “Yes, and can you remember what you said to me? ‘It’s that old bastard who killed them!’” Gaston then said that the carbine belonged to Clovis, but he denied this, saying that it was kept at the Grand’ Terre.

  Things were once again getting out of hand, but there was a slight lull in the storm when a fresh witness, Aimé Dominici, was cross-examined. He also said that he had never seen the carbine at the Grand’ Terre. This was confirmed by young Gaston Dominici’s wife, Marie, who asserted that there was no reason to doubt her father-in-law’s innocence. She further claimed Clovis had said that “it would be better if it were the old man, rather than a young innocent.” An outraged Clovis denied having ever said such a thing. In a feeble voice Gaston repeated that he was not guilty and that he did not want to take someone else’s place. When Marie was asked what she thought of Gustave, she replied, “He’s a weakling.”

  Gaston’s nephew, Léon Dominici—his half-brother Leon’s son—was the next witness to be called. He was a good-looking man, well spoken, intelligent, and polite. He was the only one of the entire Dominici clan who made a favorable impression. He said that he had never seen his uncle lift a hand against his children. He also thought that Gustave was a feeble creature, lacking any strength of character, whereas Clovis had backbone. Once, when Léon was eleven years old, he had amused himself while at the Grand’ Terre by throwing stones at the porcelain insulation units on the electric pylons. Gaston had caught him in the act and had simply said, “Pack your bags and fuck off!”9 He was at least able to cast a little light on the bizarre business concerning Paul Maillet and the metal cart. Maillet had sold it to Léon’s cousin Bonino for 1,000 francs ($3). One day some employees of the electric company reclaimed it, saying that it had been stolen from them some time ago. Bonino went to Paul Maillet and asked for his money back. Maillet replied that it was pretty stupid of him to get caught. The story did not reflect well on Paul Maillet’s honesty, but it contributed nothing to Gaston’s defense. Léon tried to put Clovis on the spot by saying that although Gustave was spineless, he had not reacted when shown the murder weapon; whereas the tough Clovis had fallen apart.

  The court now heard attorney Delorme speak for the civil party.10 He had some experience in such matters, having won a symbolic 1 franc in damages in the court at Aix-en-Provence in a case against the seventy-three-year-old Georges “Dr. Sarret” Sarrenjani, who was accused of murdering three people and dissolving their bodies in sulfuric acid. Delorme began by saying that there was a fourth victim in this case, Lady Drummond’s mother, Mrs. Wilbraham, who had suffered a stroke on hearing of the murders. He gave a moving account of Sir Jack’s career and his family life with Anne and Elizabeth. He expressed his deep repulsion at the way in which Gaston had insulted his victims with his obscene and mendacious account of his exchange with Lady Drummond on the night of the crime. “It was not enough for Gaston Dominici to assassinate Lady Drummond, he also wanted also to dishonor her!” At this a number of women in the courtroom shouted, “Bravo!” He praised all those involved in the case and closed with a periphrastic flourish: “In order for the immense stain on our country to be removed, and to give back to the population the peace of mind to which they are entitled, justice must be done by punishing this terribl
e crime that you are called upon to judge.”

  Friday’s session ended with Deputy Public Prosecutor Sabatier giving a passionate defense of the dossier. He began by stating categorically, “I am convinced that Gaston Dominici is entirely culpable, totally culpable and solely culpable.” He gave a brief account of the course of the investigation, stressing Gustave’s lies, the contradictions in the statements made by Yvette, and the fact that Gaston had made a voluntary confession, which he could have easily retracted when Périès questioned him. Sabatier discounted Dr. Dragon’s testimony about Elizabeth’s condition on the grounds that there was enough grass along the path for her feet not to have suffered any abrasions and because expert testimony had shown that rigor mortis begins much later in a child. He cleared Zézé Perrin of any suspicion, because had he been guilty he would not have testified that the Drummonds had come to the Grand’ Terre to get water and would not have said that Gustave got up much earlier than usual on the morning of 5 August. He gave a violent temper as the motive for the murders: “You have before you a brutal and savage crime, committed by a violent man in a fit of rage. In my opinion it was the act of a single man. If there were a second person involved that would involve complicity—that is to say, a coolheaded action. I do not believe this. Just look at Gaston Dominici’s character. He is proud. He says himself: ‘I’m afraid of no one.’ This crime is a reflection of his personality: anger possibly combined with alcohol.”

  As Gaston left the courtroom, there were many cries of “à mort (death)!”11

  On Saturday morning, 27 November, the tenth and final day of the trial, Advocate General Calixte Rozan, who had lost his voice the day before due to influenza, had to use a microphone during his summary of the case for the prosecution to be intelligible. A technical fault resulted in his speech being heard over loudspeakers by the crowd outside the courtroom. It would be difficult to imagine a prosecutor who looked more prosecutorial. With small, beady eyes; a long, pointed nose; and bitterly ironical mouth, he was the very image of an inquisitor. Speaking in the flowery tones and rich cadences of an actor from the Comédie-Française, he dismissed out of hand a series of fantastic versions of the crime, the most persistent of which was that secret services were involved. He could do so with utter confidence, for he had seen a letter written by Patrick Reilly, the British minister in Paris, that had been given to attorney Delorme that testified that Sir Jack had never been engaged as an intelligence agent.12 Rozan also was convinced that Zézé Perrin had not been at the Grand’ Terre the night of the murders and that Gustave was innocent. He argued that Zézé’s lies were designed to hide the fact that he had got out of bed late, which would have angered his father. Then Rozan played another dubious trump: Zézé would never have dared leave the farm during that night, because the horse stabled at La Serre, worth 100,000 francs ($300), might have strangled itself with its halter. Further, Gustave would have been exhausted, having spent the entire day threshing, and would not have wanted to wander around in the middle of the night poaching.

  Rozan spoke to the “jurymen from the Basses-Alpes,” men “with their feet on the ground,” while constantly repeating that he came from the same region. His thumbnail sketches of the witnesses were remarkably succinct. Panayotou was “a piece of shit.” Yvette “owed nothing to Jacques Fath and to Elizabeth Arden, but owed everything to our sun and our sky. . . . She’s pretty but she’s only a little ‘garce’ and you, gentlemen of the jury from the Basses-Alpes, you know what that means.”13 Gustave was “a pathetic creature. . . . In this part of the world when one says he is nothing at all one has said everything.” He quoted Michel de Montaigne and Alphonse Daudet, heavily underlining that the jurymen had probably never heard of them. He then paid tribute to Gaston Dominici’s sterling qualities as a hardworking farmer. Gaston was clearly delighted at such praise.

  Having voiced his appreciation of Sébeille’s patient and exhaustive investigation, Rozan then launched into a lengthy description of the crime. It was embellished with many a rhetorical flourish. Turning toward the accused he declaimed, “You washed your hands in the Durance. As a result the people in Marseille drank some of little Elizabeth’s blood.” His description of Elizabeth’s childish face bathed in moonlight, her little eyes full of an indescribable horror, her little hands imploring for mercy brought tears to many eyes. After two hours of flowery eloquence, he concluded by pleading with the jury to answer yes to all the seven questions they were going to have to answer “in the name of little Elizabeth, who is our little girl.” In a parting shot he pleaded with the jury, “You should have no pity for this man, who had no pity for a ten-year-old child!” It was a magnificent show and a superb theatrical performance but was woefully lacking in substance.

  For the defense, attorney Léon Charles-Alfred used a tone of biting irony to praise Rozan’s exquisite rhetoric. He painted a glowing portrait of the stalwart patriarch and expressed his profound indignation at the methods used to extract his confession, but he offered little apart from a feeble attempt to present Gaston as an innocent old man who had confessed to the crime to save his grandchildren’s honor.

  Pierre Charrier, the Marseille Communist Party’s lawyer, spoke next for the defense. He described the advocate general as a man who was overwhelmed by the task of defending a questionable dossier. He claimed that Rozan did not have a single decisive fact on which an objective judgment could be based.

  The defense ended with Émile Pollak’s plea. He argued that the case had been judged in advance and that it was based entirely on a confession. In a British or American court, where lawyers all have at least a fleeting acquaintance with Jeremy Bentham’s “Rationale of Judicial Evidence,” the weakness of such a case would have been self-evident; however, Pollak had to remind the court that a confession is worthless without material evidence. Sébeille’s much vaunted psychological approach had ignored a great deal that might have bolstered his case. Furthermore, knowing exactly under what conditions Gaston’s confession had been obtained was essential. Here Pollak became enmeshed in his own grandiloquence, even comparing Gaston’s ordeal in the law courts to that of Christ on the cross. Indeed, he worked himself up into such a state that the court had to be adjourned for him to be able to change into a fresh shirt.

  Pollak then dwelled at length on the lies and inconsistencies in the testimonies of Gustave, Clovis, and Zézé, a group that he described as “that disturbing trio.” He reminded the jury of the Richauds’ terrible murder at Valensole, for which two teenagers had been convicted. Who could say that Zézé Perrin, aged sixteen at the time of the murders, was incapable of committing such a crime? Pollak next claimed that Clovis was full of hatred for his father and that he was the owner of the murder weapon. He painted the reconstruction of the crime as “a pathetic movie.” Pollak then solemnly announced that whereas Clovis was motivated by hatred, Gustave was motivated by fear. Turning toward him, he said, “Gustave! If you are guilty, or if you know something, come here and speak out. We at least have no fear of the truth. Gustave! I go down on bended knee and beg you!” Gustave remained silent.

  Pollak described Gaston as the victim of his two sons, whom he described as “wild beasts” and as “monsters who want to disembowel their father.” He then turned to the jury:

  Are you going to be satisfied with this scapegoat? Are you going to find this innocent man guilty? Are you going to accept liars’ words? Are you going to shed the blood of a decent man? Do not be cowards! Only count on yourselves. Do not bank on the prince’s clemency. There is no legal provision for saving the old man from the scaffold. Accept your responsibility. It is not crimes that remain unpunished that wring the hearts of governments and the people, but the condemnation of the innocent.

  He warned the jury of the terrible consequences of judicial error, mentioning the infamous cases of Jean Calas and Alfred Dreyfus.

  The jury appeared to be unmoved by this florid peroration. At a quarter past twelve, Bousquet announced that the proceedi
ngs were over, whereupon he left the courtroom followed by his associate judges and the seven jurors in single file. Gaston’s final words as they left the room were: “I’m here in place of another. I’ve already spent a year in prison. I’m honest and loyal. I’m innocent.” This plea also made no impact on the stone-faced jury as the men left for the conference room to reach a verdict.

  At two-thirty that afternoon, the bells rang, calling the court to reassemble. The presiding judge—who with his huge round head, thin lips, bulging eyes, and plastered-back hair, bore a marked resemblance to the prominent resistance leader and founder of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (Popular Republican Movement), Georges Bidault—turned to the jury. In a low Provençal voice without a trace of solemnity, he asked the jury to announce its answers to seven questions: Was the accused guilty of the murder Sir Jack Drummond? Was he guilty of the murder of Lady Anne Drummond? Did he murder Elizabeth? Was Elizabeth’s murder premeditated? He asked three further questions as to whether each murder happened at the same time as the other two. The jury answered yes on all seven counts.

  The presiding judge then read out passages from paragraphs 302 and 304 of the criminal code and 351 and 367 of the code of criminal procedure in a monotonous tone. Then, raising his voice somewhat, he announced, “The court and the jury condemn Gaston Dominici to death!”

  At first Gaston appeared to be unmoved. He sat quietly chewing a lump of sugar. Then as he left the box, he began to murmur some incomprehensible phrases. Then he exclaimed, “Must I pay for others? Ah! Those bastards . . .” It was unclear whether he was referring to the members of the jury or his own family.

  Minutes later Bousquet called the court back into session so he could read the verdict of the civil case brought by Anne’s mother, Mrs. Wilbraham, and in which the jury was not involved. She was awarded the symbolic one franc in damages.