Missings of Mourmelon

Between 1980 and 1987, at least 8 young people disappear near the military camp from Mourmelon. The slowness and uncertainties of the investigation marked the spirits. With the lawsuit of Outreau, the business of the disappeared from Mourmelon remains today one of the médiatisés examples of failures of French justice.

Summary of the facts

The fact that a majority of the missings are called quota, shown desertion, delayed the starting of a serious investigation. The complexity of the business, the dispersion and the insufficiency of the means (at least 11 examining magistrates), of the faults and the negligences (losses of seals, valuations useless or badly made) made the instruction extremely long and chaotic.

23 years after the first disappearance, Pierre Chanal is finally returned before the Court of Assizes of the Marne for 3 disappearances. 5 withdrawals of case were pronounced for the oldest disappearances, for lack of reasonable evidence.

The suicide of the defendant, at the first day of its lawsuit of bases, whereas it is under the monitoring of the legal administration, involves the end of the public action and removes any hope to know the truth on disappearances.

The French State was finally condemned for heavy fault in January 2005. The judgment stigmatizes “ the inaptitude with the public service of justice to fulfill its mission ” because a “ series of faults ” made by the examining magistrates and the investigators “ slowed down the instruction of the various businesses of worrying disappearances ” and led “ so that the circumstances of the removal and the death of several victims remain unknown”.

Eight missings

January 4th, 1980 : Patrick Dubois , affected with the 4th tank regiment of combat with Mourmelon, disappears. A procedure desertion is open. February 20th, 1981 : Disappearance of Serge Havet , affected with the 3rd artillery regiment with Mailly, whereas it went in permission in his family.

August 7th, 1981 : Manual Carvalho , affected to the 4th regiment of Dragons with Mourmelon, from goes away in weekend and disappears.

August 20th, 1981 : Pascal Sergeant , affected to the 503e tank regiment of combat with Mourmelon, leaves in permission and never returns.

September 30th, 1982 : Olivier To give , affected with the 503e tank regiment of combat of Mourmelon, disappears.

August 23rd, 1985 : Patrice Denis , a civilian who went to the camp of Mourmelon, disappears.

April 30th, 1987 : Patrick Wastes , affected with the 4th regiment of Dragons of Mourmelon, leaves the camp not to return there never again.

August 8th, 1987 : Discovered corpse of Trevor O' Keeffe , Irish hitch-hiker, in Alaincourt in Aisne, killed using a Lace throttle valve.

Detailed history of the instruction of the business

October 31st, 1982 : Discovered corpse Olivier Donner, which will involve the opening of legal information with Troyes. One starts to evoke the existence of a Serial killer in the area.

August 2nd, 1984 : In the absence of other disappearances, the files Dubois, Havet, Sergeant and To give are closed by French justice.

August 27th, 1985 : Opening of legal information for “sequestration” of Patrice Denis near a Châlons-in-Champagne judge.

August 1986 : the regimental sergeant major Pierre Chanal is transferred to Fontainebleau. He continues to go regularly to the para-club of Mourmelon

August 13rd, 1987 : Opening of legal information in the business O' Keefe in Saint-Quentin.

August 9th, 1988 : Arrest close to Mâcon of Pierre Chanal who sequestered a Hungarian hitch-hiker, Palazs Falvay, in its combi Volkswagen. The young man known as to have undergone sexual maltreatment.

August 11th, 1988 : Pierre Chanal is put in examination and écroué in this file.

October 23rd, 1990 : The Court of Assizes of Saône-et-Loire condemns Pierre Chanal to ten years of imprisonment for rapes, indecent assaults and sequestration of the young Hungarian.

February 7th, 1992 : Schedule junction of the files Dubois, Havet, Carvalho, Sergent, Denis and Gache who present similarities.

June 30th, 1993 : A Châlons-in-Champagne examining magistrate proceeds to the setting in examination of Pierre Chanal for sequestrations and assassinations in the files Dubois, Havet, Carvalho, Sergent, Denis and Gache with setting in detention pending trial.

September 13rd, 1994 : The judge of Troyes deprives himself of the investigation into the death of Olivier, given to the profit of his Châlons-in-Champagne colleague.

November 28th, 1994 : Setting in examination of Pierre Chanal for the murder of Trevor O' Keefe. The judge of Saint-Quentin will deprive himself then with the profit of his colleague of Châlons-in-Champagne. June 16th, 1995 : Release of Pierre Chanal.

August 10th, 2001 : The examining magistrate orders the reference of Pierre Chanal before the Court of Assizes of the Marne for sequestrations and assassinations of Patrice Denis, Patrick Gache and Trevor O' Keefe. It grants to him a withdrawal of case in the files of Patrick Dubois, Serge Havet, Manuel Carvalho, Pascal Sergent and Olivier Donner.

June 2002 : Eroline O' Keeffe, the mother of the strangled Irish hitch-hiker, assigns the State in justice for the failures and errors of the investigation.

July 5th, 2002 : The Court of Appeal of Rheims returns Pierre Chanal in front of bases for “sequestration and premeditated murder” of three of the missings.

May 12th, 2003 : Pierre Chanal tries to put an end to his days, the day before the opening of his lawsuit in Rheims. Opening of the lawsuit the 13 in the absence of the defendant. The court gives him one week to appear and places it in detention. Because of the health condition of the defendant, the lawsuit is finally deferred to October.

June 11th, 2003 : Pierre Chanal is placed of office to the psychiatric hospital of Villejuif (the Valley-of-Marne) which it will leave at the end of June.

July 5th, 2003 : Pierre Chanal starts an hunger strike at the prison of Fresnes.

October 14th, 2003 : Second opening of the lawsuit before the Court of Assizes from the Marne in Rheims. October 15th, 2003 : Suicide of Pierre Chanal, who puts an end to the lawsuit.

After the lawsuit

October 16th, 2003 : First mail sent to Dominique Perben, Minister for Justice, to ask an investigation into the whole of the instruction of the business.

March 31st, 2004 : Nicole Guedj is named Secretary of State to the rights of the victims.

March 24th, 2004 : The lawyers of the families of the seven French missings unite with the complaint of Mrs. O' Keeffe against the State, follow-ups the following day by the parents of two young men missing in 1975 and 1977 from the military camp from Valdahon (Doubs), where Pierre Chanal was instructor.

January 26th, 2005 : The State is condemned by the Court of Bankruptcy of Paris to compensate the 36 family members for the missings to 25.000 euros height each one. This judgment does not involve any reaction of the Minister for Justice Dominique Perben.

February 6th, 2006 : The telefilm the Business Pierre Chanal is diffused on France 2.

August 24th, 2007 : France 3 reconsiders the business of the missings of Mourmelon with the emission " Businesses classées".

External bonds

disparusdemourmelon.org
scenedecrime.com
was Chanal related to porn-criminality?

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