The Spring of 1982: The Tale of Jean-Luc Sebin, Public Enemy Number One in France

Jean-Luc Sebin, a small-time delinquent who became public enemy number one out of love, set France in turmoil at the spring 1982. In the space of a few months, this 22-year-old young man killed two men, including a gendarme, shot in cold blood on a road in Saint-Cyr-l’École.

In his escape of several weeks, he notably spent thirty hours hidden in the crawl space of a building in Porchefontaine, Versailles, among rats. That is to say his determination. He was said to be mad, damaged by an unstructured adolescence. Insufficient to escape the heaviest possible sanction: the life imprisonment.

“I don’t want to take it for 20 years”

On Saturday March 27, 1982, shortly after 4 p.m., he was driving a Peugeot 504 break, stolen and falsely tackled, with his mistress, Maryvonne Buisson. At a red light Epi d’Or crossroads, in Saint-Cyr-l’École, two bikers from the gendarmerie, in control, wave to him to pull over. “I don’t want to take it for 20 years,” he said to his passenger, before pressing the button.

Sebin already has quite a pedigree. Fraud, theft of checks, trafficking in false papers. But above all, he killed his mistress’s husband, Sahim Redjem, in September 1981. And also knows he is wanted for the kidnapping of a jeweler near Pontoise (Val-d’Oise).

Shooting

Was it still necessary to prove that this man was dangerous? The rest of the story unfortunately removes all doubts. The soldiers chase him. The chase comes to an abrupt halt in front of 24, rue Arago when he hits a 2 CV parked.

The gendarme Michel Teule, 27, tall, mustaches rolled up, extracts the fugitive from the passenger compartment, presses him against the 504 and holds him at gunpoint. His mistress then brutally opens her door and runs away. ” Attention ! She leaves. Catch her, ”says the biker to his colleague, Major Gilles Carlotti.

In the confusion, Sebin feigns pain in his stomach, thwarting the soldier’s grip, then pulls out a pistol concealed in his jacket and fires. The 7.65 ball hit the policeman in the heart. He falls dead, and will never get up again.

“The gendarme collapsed face down on the ground. I was a few meters away. The gangster walked backwards aiming at me. I made myself very small behind a wooden telephone pole. He fired at me,” said a witness to the scene, Mr. Lepen, at the time. News from Versailles.

For his part, the major has handcuffed young woman to motorcycle and gets robbed in turn. Three shots ring out, no one is hit.

He takes a young man hostage who washes his BMW

Carlotti pulls out his gun and changes his mind. Too many passers-by. Sebin flees through the streets, pistol in hand. Residence Emile-Zola, he takes hostage a young man who was washing his BMW. Direction Versailles.

Around 4:30 p.m., the killer, sitting in the passenger seat, escaped control in the royal city, avenue de Paris. He abandons the car and its hostage, then takes off with great strides. Shots are fired. Mr. Berger, guardian of the rose garden residencerecounted the scene in News from Versailles “I saw a man dressed in a brown jacket, a pistol in his hand, rush into the residence and then disappear between the buildings. »

The alert is given. In a few minutes, gendarmes, police officers from the SRPJ and the police station surrounded the scene. Versailles, flown over by helicopters, is under siege. The GIGN takes over the buildings and combs through every corner of the residence: cellars, underground parking.

Sebin is cooked? Amazingly, he has thwarted the scent of the gendarmes and their dogs, holed up for thirty hours in the crawl space of the building, curled up behind a pillar among the rats. A small space, located below the buildings, yet well inspected by the military.

The siege is lifted by the authorities in the middle of the evening, believing that the fugitive was already far away, while the affair made the opening of the television news.

He has already killed his mistress’s husband

During this time, the passenger of the 504 is cooked in the premises of 36, quai des Orfèvres, the Parisian PJ. This bubbly little brunette first declares not knowing Sebin, being a simple hitchhiker, before admitting that they had an affair of a few months. A love affair which she would have ended because she suspected him of having killed her husband, with whom she ran a bar rue Voltaire in Paris (XI^e).

In 1981, at the counter, she met her future lover, ten years her junior. The adulterous relationship quickly becomes serious. The thirty-year-old dumps her husband to go live with the young man. After a few months, she wants to backtrack. On September 23, 1981, Redjem’s body, with two bullets in the headwas discovered, bundled up, under the bed of his apartment in the rue de Cléry (II^e). No doubt, it is Jean-Luc Sebin the author.

The 30-year-old will be quickly released by the PJ, exonerated in the death of the gendarme. The investigators just ask her to alert them if their man shows up with her.

Jean-Luc Sebin will quickly talk about him again. On Sunday March 28, 1982, coming out of his den, he takes Paul Piétri hostagea retired officer, in the parking lot of a building at 25, rue du Pont-Colbert in Versailles.

“Give me your car… Or come with me to Paris”

He threatens him with his weapon: “Give me your car… Or come with me to Paris”, we could read at the time in an article by News from Versailles co-signed by Dominique Rizet, then a young journalist.

The septuagenarian deposits it Bagnolet gate, before going to tell his misadventure to the police. Research is therefore focusing on the capital to find this man suspected of two murders and the hostage-taking of a jeweler, kidnapped on a small road near Luzarches (Val-d’Oise), in July 1981, by a armed commando who wanted to loot his store but who screwed up, and finally released him.

His escape did not last long. April 24, 1982, 10 p.m.: Sebin is arrested in a studio on the boulevard de l’Hôpital (Paris XIII^e). A flat rented by his mistress, which had it both ways. During the reconstitution of the murder of the gendarme, the young man smiled when replaying the scene. Sinister.

He will be judged three times. In May 1985 for the murder of Redjem: 20 years in prison. From June 12 to 14 of the same year, he appeared before the Assize Court of Versailles for the Saint-Cyr affair, alongside his mistress, who was being prosecuted for “harbouring”.

Released from prison in 2005

The debates will reveal that at 13 he lived alone in the family apartment, abandoned by his mother. It forged its lively skinned personality, intolerant of frustration. They will also highlight that it was out of love for Maryvonne Buisson, described as manipulative, that he killed Redjem.

A woman at the heart of his torments because if it was her that he helped him in his escape, it was she who also swayed during his run. Verdict: life imprisonment for him, six months suspended sentence for her.

In 1987, at jeweler kidnapping trial, a formality with regard to his legal career, he will take seven years. Jean-Luc Sebin is released from behind bars in 2005, on parole. The news caused an outcry at the time.

Previous episodes:
• The last trial of Michel Fourniret.
• Fabrice Motch, the fallen firefighter.
• The sextuple murder of Louveciennes.
• The unsolved death of Youssef Houacine.
• Louis Poirson, the stonemason.
• François Darcy, the crime was almost perfect.
• The Jean Jaubert affair: feminicide in Cernay-la-Ville.
• Christine Malèvre, a serial killer in the hospital

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