It was a little after 1 a.m. this Thursday, September 3, when the Haute-Saône public prosecutor, Arnaud Grécourt, announced the opening of an investigation into intentional homicide. A few hours earlier, around 8 p.m., four bodies belonging to the same family were discovered on isolated land in the heights of Gy, a town of around 1,000 inhabitants located around thirty kilometers north of Besançon, reveals L’Est Républicain.
On this plot bordered by a dry stone wall, between vineyards and woods, the family lived in a mobile home installed next to a house under construction, reported an AFP journalist this Thursday morning. Two bodies were found in a white utility vehicle parked in the field, the other two in the mobile home. Arriving on site the evening before, the public prosecutor of Vesoul and the mayor of Gy, Alexandre Lacroix, noted the quadruple homicide - that of a man, two children and a woman, report our colleagues from the local press. The father of the family would have “killed the three other people before turning the weapon (Editor’s note: a hunting rifle) against him”, according to the hypothesis favored by the prosecution in its press release published this Thursday afternoon.
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“He filmed the scene and sent it to his wife”
According to a man met by AFP near the scene of the tragedy and who introduced himself as his cousin, the father of the family, in his forties, committed the triple homicide when his mother-in-law was coming to pick up the children. “He filmed the scene and sent it to his wife, telling her: this is what you deserve,” before forwarding the images to his brothers, said the cousin, who did not wish to give his name. According to an official source, “it concerns a couple in the process of divorcing – belonging to the Traveler community – who were in the process of building their house”. A hypothesis that is “privileged” today, indicates the Vesoul prosecutor in his press release. Aged 42, this father worked in construction, according to one of his neighbors. Her mother-in-law was 74 years old.
According to the family member interviewed, his partner wanted to leave him since he had been unfaithful to her several months ago, he reported. They seemed to have reconciled, going on vacation together to Greece this summer, but on Wednesday, she asked her mother to pick up the children, telling her: “I don’t want to go back.”
An event that “will remain engraved forever”
In this small town, the story of the tragedy quickly spread. As of 10:30 p.m. yesterday, Mayor Alexandre Lacroix urgently convened the municipal council to inform elected officials of the situation. This Thursday morning, in a press release, he evokes an event which “will remain forever engraved” in the history of the commune, and calls on the inhabitants “to show restraint, to have dignity” and not to relay information not confirmed by the courts.
The councilor also claims to have brought together the educational community at 7:45 a.m., before setting up a psychological support unit in the city's four schools. Four psychologists are thus mobilized to discuss with the children as well as with the teaching staff, the measure having been extended beyond the sole Catherine-Fraischot educational center where the young victims were educated. According to the latter at the Est Républicain, the family was “very involved in the community life of the town”.
At the same time, the municipal council decided to cancel the two festive events of the weekend: the ceremony of the City Trophies for sport, scheduled for Friday evening, and the fireworks display for this Saturday. The investigation continues, entrusted to the Vesoul research brigade. “The autopsy of the four bodies has been ordered,” assures the prosecution.
