On the night of May 6 to 7, 2006, in the town of Moulins-Engilbert in the department of Nièvre, the evening is in full swing. Suddenly, one of the children, Mathias Duchemin, four years, missing. In the morning, he is found lifeless and naked, near the Guignon river around the village hall. The medical examiner’s report is damning: the child was raped and suffocated to death.
On the spot, the investigators note the horror of the scene. “We are facing a particularly heinous crime”, described in Voices of Crime, Colonel Jean-François Doublier, still marked by the discovery of the body. The meeting with the devastated parents of little Mathias upsets him. “When I shake hands with Philippe Duchemin, he looks me in the eye and says ‘I hope you will find the one who did this’“, he recalls. This criminal case remains one of the most important in the colonel’s career and even today he teaches it in gendarmerie schools as a “model”.
This investigation is sixteen hours a day. We get up, we think Mathias. In the morning, we see Mathias and we go to bed thinking of Mathias
Colonel Jean-Francois Doublier
Un titanic investigative work is conducted. The investigators retrace the thread of the evening, from its minute-by-minute progress, to the table plan of the 200 guests present, through the slightest movement of each. The following days, the research is colossal : the investigators identify 734 sexual predators released from prison in the previous two months or who have been the subject of legal proceedings. All this, just in the department of Nièvre.
In this case, all the testimonies are scrutinized and nothing is ruled out. “This investigation is fifteen to sixteen hours a day. We get up, we think Mathias. In the morning, we saw Mathias, and we went to bed thinking of Mathias”, specifies the colonel.
In just a few days, the investigation led by Jean François Doublier and his team leads them to a name: Christian Beaulieu. All the evidence collected overwhelms him. In police custody, the suspect confesses his crime. By pure chance, Nicolas Sarkozy is on the move in a town near the village. The former Minister of the Interior then took it upon himself to announce to Mathias’ parents that their son’s criminal has been found. Christian Beaulieu, a resident of the village, was then indicted and then sentenced to life imprisonment with 30 years of security.
There was a before and an after Mathias
Colonel Jean-Francois Doublier
The death of Mathias Duchemin mourns an entire family, an entire village, but also each investigator who worked on the case. “The principle is to disconnect emotionally. But on a case as dramatic as this, it’s not possible”confides the colonel not without emotion.
“Mathias belonged to all the investigators of the SR, he continues. It was our child to all and I still shudder when I tell you about it. There was a before and an after Mathias”. For the first time in all these criminal cases, all the gendarmes in charge of research gather near the grave of the little boy at the end of the investigation. They also deposit there a plaque in memory of the murdered little boy.
–
>> Voices of Crime are lawyers, investigators, relatives of victims, suspects or culprits. These key witnesses confide in the microphone of RTL journalists. Unpublished testimonies, which shed new light on justice and major criminal cases today.
Twice a month, one of these Voices of Crime tells us her point of view on a criminal case. An RTL podcast.
–
–
