Twanted to crush me, you bastard! But I’ll make you pay for that and the rest! »
– You don’t scare me! I told the gendarmes about your merry-go-round!
It’s been ten minutes since the two men deafened the neighborhood with their shouting. In Saint-Gély-du-Fesc, north of Montpellier, the pavilions on rue de la Draille are only enclosed by low walls, so that, from one garden to another, it is impossible to ignore the cries of the two adversaries. The most determined is a bearded old man, still strong, whose features recall those of Captain Haddock. The other, a mustachioed a little younger, beefier too, defies him with a look and threatens him with threat, insult for insult. After a few minutes, on a last furious exchange, the two enraged ones interrupt their quarrel and turn their backs on each other. Each has only three meters to go home: they live in two adjoining houses, at the entrance of the rue du Baptistou. Jean-Luc Amilhac, 70, the youngest, is the former son-in-law of Pierre Queille, 81. For a long time, they were close, so to speak, parents. They are now mortal enemies.
At the time, Pierre warns his daughter
The story began when the first fell in love with the second’s daughter. Joëlle, a blonde with a long face, was 25 years old at the time and worked as a driver for public transport in Montpellier. Jean-Luc was for his part a delivery driver for a pharmaceutical laboratory. A virile, helpful, smiling type, but twenty-three years older than her… At the time, Pierre Queille warned his daughter against this great age difference. Wasted effort. The attraction is too strong. Joëlle and Jean-Luc, both passionate about car rallies, get together. They soon have a daughter, then a son. And, as Joëlle maintains a close relationship with her parents, they settle on the same land as them, in Saint-Gély.
Doubts, coldness, disenchantment …
The years go by. Then come the doubts, the coldness, the disenchantment … In 2020, Joëlle is no longer hiding to have a lover, a man named Eric. But, to spare her children, she postpones the moment to leave Jean-Luc, still in love with her. Cohabitation is painful, punctuated by violent scenes. From time to time, Joëlle, who is not in the habit of asking for help, goes through the next door, and takes refuge with her parents, sobbing:
– I’ll get the hell out and you’ll never see me again! she told them.
On September 6, the threat becomes reality. After a final quarrel, Joëlle leaves rue de la Draille on foot, without telling anyone. She leaves in sandals, a tiny bag under her arm, as if for a walk. Except she doesn’t come home.
At 5:03 p.m., a surveillance camera films her at the Cévennes roundabout, north of the village. In the images, we see her walking towards Ganges wearing a sky blue Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt. Then, nothing … When her relatives give the alert, they realize that she has taken off without her papers, without money, without even her phone. Joëlle Queille, obviously, has not left to rebuild her life. Nor join her lover. Nor to breathe a little before returning home. She just left. In Saint-Gély, the incomprehension is total.
Between hope and depression
Her sister sticks posters everywhere to indicate her “disturbing disappearance“. Her mother, a small woman with short gray locks, assures us that she is still alive. She feels it … Her father, Pierre, vacillates between hope and depression:
– All I ask is to be able to hold my “chip” in my arms again. But I have very little hope. Unless someone hitchhiked her.
In his dismay, Eric, Joëlle’s lover, gets excited:
– If she comes back, I ask her to marry me!
The gendarmes, for their part, stick to the realities on the ground. They mobilize dog teams, a helicopter, a drone, battalions of volunteers and local hunters that they methodically deploy in squared areas… Without success.
Nine days later, on September 15, it is by chance that a walker discovers a corpse, in a vineyard in Matelles, along the D986. A woman in her forties, blond hair… Joëlle. His relatives are devastated. And doubt further aggravates their misfortune. Because nothing is crystal clear in this death. After what incident did Joëlle run away? And with what projects? Did she want to kill herself? Did she swallow pills? Did she let herself die there, of cold, of hunger, on the bare earth, four kilometers from her home? Or was she the victim of a fall? From a bad meeting? His body shows no obvious signs of violence. Toxicological analyzes do not reveal any drug overdose. Neither the date nor the causes of death can be precisely established. It only seems that the death is recent.
Sorrow pits them against each other
In the midst of tears, uncertainty maintains unease and poisons the family atmosphere. In the house on the left, Jean-Luc is tormented by the idea that his stepfather has done everything to break up his relationship. In the house on the right, Pierre suspects the one he now calls his “ex-son-in-law” of being responsible, if not guilty, for the death of his daughter. Maybe he chased her, caught up with her, hit her? We understood it: far from uniting the two men, grief pits them against each other.
Jean-Luc, who fears for his safety, installs a surveillance camera on his roof. He is not disappointed: every morning, Pierre Queille gives a middle finger to the lens, when he does not point his shotgun squarely at it … Exasperated, Jean-Luc twice denounces these threats to the gendarmes. Then, on January 20, it was Pierre who filed a complaint in turn, accusing his ex-son-in-law of having rushed over him in the car. Each day, the two men trample a little more underfoot the memory of Joëlle, and the gendarmes, fearing the worst, end up patrolling regularly in front of their home. In Saint-Gély, everyone senses the imminence of a new tragedy.
We are now April 7, still at the top of the rue de la Draille. It is 8:45 a.m. when a gunshot rings out, shaking all the neighbors inside their house. Then comes a second shot, and a third, and a fourth!
The unhappy man is draining his blood
The police are notified. While the municipal police blocked traffic and ordered residents to stay at home, the Castelnau-le-Lez gendarmes rushed towards rue du Baptistou… There, on the sidewalk, they found a man on the ground, stretched out between a purple Fiat and an overturned gray trash can. It’s Jean-Luc Amilhac. He is still alive but received three 12-gauge bullets, one of which severed his femoral artery. The unfortunate man is drained of his blood …
The Samu provides him with first aid
Two men grab him by the arms and drag him to the Cévennes roundabout, leaving long bloody trails on the road. Sheltered from a possible resumption of fire, the Samu intervened and provided him with first aid behind a stretched sheet. But it’s too late. Jean-Luc is going to die there, at the same place where his partner was last seen alive …
And Pierre Queille, who is obviously the murderer, where is he? The gendarmes hail his wife, who scans the street from the top of her terrace, her face broken down.
– Where is your husband, Madame?
The old woman, in complete confusion, struggles to answer. We must evacuate it too. They sit her down in a neighborhood veterinary clinic, ask her how she feels.
– I’m fine, she replies, but I’m afraid my husband is dead too.
Unfortunately, she is right. What happened ? It is the images of the camera installed by Jean-Luc that tell it most bluntly. When Pierre Queille saw his ex-son-in-law take out his trash, he walked to meet him, gun in hand, pockets full of ammunition… Without a word, he aimed him and fired three times. Then, still in his garden, he knelt down, stuck the barrel under his chin. And, without waiting a moment longer, he shot the last bullet in the head. That was the fourth detonation.
Joëlle’s disappearance left an unexplained death. We must now add two corpses, and two orphans. At the time of the tragedy, Jean-Luc’s children, aged 11 and 12, probably awakened by the blasts, were in their room. It was the gendarmes who informed them of the death of their father and grandfather.
An investigation by Sophie Noachovitch
