The Dominici Affair

by Martin Kitchen

  Morin had been questioned by Edmond Sébeille and Lucien Tardieu during the initial investigation, but Sébeille had felt that Morin’s memory was so vague that little could be made of his testimony. Chenevier thought that since hunters liked to talk about guns, Morin might have something to say about the Rock-Ola. Much to his surprise, Morin announced that he had probably seen it and that it was kept on a shelf in a shed near the farmhouse.

  Morin’s testimony presented certain problems. His recollections of the gun when he had first been shown photographs of the weapon in 1952 were very hazy, but in 1955 he no longer had any doubts. Initially he had said that the weapon was kept in a cellar; later he had said it was in a shed. There were also some discrepancies between his different versions of where this cellar, or shed, was in relation to the farmhouse.

  Carrias, who clearly resented the presence of these Parisian luminaries and who felt that the whole idea of a new investigation against an “Unknown” (or “X”) was an insult to the Provençal police, dismissed Chenevier and Gillard with the assurance that he would think the matter over. His stonewalling and his intent on defending the original dossier were widely seen in the press as part of a deliberate cover-up and an attempt to bury the Dominici affair.3 In fact, his hands were tied by the court of appeal in Aix-en-Provence, as it saw no reason to open a new investigation. Carrias had ample justification for his anger at the attitude of the press, whose sensational reporting had seriously compromised the original investigation, the trial, and the subsequent inquiries. He was determined to keep the press at bay, a tactic that was taken as further evidence of a cover-up.

  It was not until 15 June that Carrias recalled the two commissioners to Digne to discuss how they should approach a collaborative effort to satisfy the justice minister’s request for a new investigation. Chenevier presented the judge with a detailed dossier of the witnesses he wished to see and the line of questioning he intended to adopt. This amounted to a list of 420 questions.4 To speed up the proceedings he also had appointed two assistants. Trampling on Provençal sensibilities, he announced that he intended to work closely with Capt. Henri Albert, head of the Forcalquier gendarmerie. Chenevier implied that Albert was the only man who, during the original investigation, had shown any signs of professional competence.

  Carrias listened in what Chenevier imagined was silent approval, but the next day he haughtily proclaimed that the commissioner’s proposals were unacceptable on the grounds they amounted in effect to a reopening of the entire affair. Furthermore, he was constrained by the criminal section of the court of appeals in Aix-en-Provence that would not permit the granting of full rogatory competence to question whomever he wished. Carrias therefore felt obliged to reconsider the commissioners’ request. He then argued that a verdict had been reached; therefore, the commission should limit itself to the examination of Gaston’s recent statements. Sébeille’s investigation, the trial, and the verdict were not to be put in question. Chenevier argued that such a piecemeal approach would lead to nothing. Carrias played a waiting game, saying that he needed more time to consider this difficult matter.

  Gaston Dominici’s nephew Léon refused to abandon the attempt to secure a retrial. As a first step he tried to see what could be done to counter Carrias’s attempts to frustrate the Chenevier inquiry. To this effect he appealed to Marcel Héraud, bâtonnier (primus inter pares) of the Paris bar, who sought the advice of the era’s probably most brilliant and certainly most expensive lawyer in Paris, René Floriot, whose law firm was known as the “Floriot Factory.”5 Héraud arranged for Léon to meet the great man.

  Léon waited anxiously in the firm’s minute waiting room with its sumptuous oriental carpets in the Avenue Hoche before being shown into the lawyer’s gigantic office, which was in a vast rotunda with Louis XVI furniture and adorned with the works of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Édouard Manet, and Eugène Delacroix. A statue of the great jurist in a toga was on prominent display. Floriot sat amid this splendor, like the figure of a god in a sacred place of worship. Léon was ensconced in an armchair while a liveried butler offered him his choice of a wide range of drinks.

  For the next two hours Floriot paced up and down, a heavily diluted whiskey and soda in his hand, while he listened to Léon’s account of the case. At first he was disinclined to become involved, but finally he agreed to help, provided that Gaston Dominici personally asked him to do so. Héraud met Floriot again briefly that evening at Orly Airport shortly before the latter left for Algiers.

  Héraud held a press conference on Monday morning. Such was his confidence in Floriot that he boldly announced that the inquiry would go ahead and that Carrias would give Chenevier and Gillard full rogatory authority. He was somewhat annoyed to find Léon waiting outside the room as the journalists left. He told him that he should always have his lawyers with him on any such occasion. For their part Pollak and Charrier disapproved strongly of Léon’s attempt to get the entire Dominici clan declared innocent, almost certainly because were he successful, rumors of a communist assassination plot would once again circulate.

  Léon was not discouraged. During the final two days of his visit to Paris, he published two articles in which he tried to prove that Gustave could not possibly have moved Lady Drummond’s body. The argument revolved on a spurious question of the height of the grass in August. He somehow imagined that if he could prove Gustave was innocent, then he would also exonerate his uncle. By the same token he believed that if he could find the reason why Gustave had obviously lied about his own actions, then he would also be able to explain why Gustave had lied about his father.

  Floriot ignored this nonsense but quickly went into action. On his return from Algiers he went to see Chenevier and Gillard and gained access to the dossier. On Monday, 18 July, four days after Léon returned to Provence, Floriot received a scrap of lined paper containing Gaston’s handwritten request that he act on his behalf. His nephew had dictated it to him. Floriot now used his considerable influence behind the scenes to ensure that Chenevier and Gillard were eventually given rogatory power.

  Floriot was convinced that Gaston was innocent.6 His main reason for thinking so was that he considered Gaston’s confession a pack of lies. He could not have watched Lady Drummond undressing because she did not undress. Her body was fully clothed. He could not have talked to her because she knew no French and he no English. The wound on Sir Jack’s hand manifestly did not come from a bullet. There was no burning or any trace of powder on the wound. He accepted the dubious argument that the condition of Elizabeth’s feet indicated that she had not run away, so Gaston’s claim that she had was clearly false. Gaston also claimed to have killed her with one blow to the back of the head, but she had received two in the face. He also accepted Gaston’s statement that he had confessed to save his family’s honor.

  Héraud traveled to Provence to confront the magistrates on the Aix bench. He emerged from the meeting in a towering rage, complaining that countless objections had been raised to a fresh inquiry. The magistrates announced that they refused to accept Chenevier and Gillard, but they would be prepared to accept almost anyone else. Héraud counterattacked by suggesting that they did not want to have Chenevier and Gillard on the case because they knew things that might compromise them.

  A further complication arose on 13 July, when Marcel Héraud went on the attack again and published an article in which he described a visit he had made to a “senior magistrate” in Aix-en-Provence, who was generally considered to be the chief prosecutor Orsatelli. He had expressed his indignation that the minister of justice had seen fit to send two police commissioners to reexamine the Dominici case. This, he claimed, implied the minister’s lack of trust in the court’s proceedings and verdict. The prosecutor’s office, the magistracy, and the courts—all were said to be livid that an examining magistrate had been appointed to investigate complicity in the crime. Carrias had told Héraud that he would accept anyone other than Chenevier and Gillard, to which Héraud replied tha
t public opinion would react unfavorably to such a substitution, because it would seem that the two commissioners knew something that the Provençal authorities did not want revealed.

  This ploy was a shocking breech of confidence and of normal practice, but it had an effect. One week later Carrias granted Chenevier and Gillard their rogatory commission but strictly limited it to discovering what Gustave Dominici and Zézé Perrin had done during the night of 4–5 August 1952. The Parisians were furious. All they had achieved after seven months of stonewalling was the right to examine the cases of two witnesses, both of whom were notorious liars. A further complication arose when Gustave and Yvette claimed that Examining Magistrate Roger Périès had changed the records by giving a false account of his questioning of them. This was hardly the basis for a serious investigation of a complex case.

  Minister of Justice Robert Schuman had told the Aix magistrates that Chenevier and Gillard were to conduct a fully independent investigation and that they should not have any contact with the police and gendarmes who had been involved in the Dominici case. Should the two policemen decide there was a case for a judicial inquiry, they were to report directly to the ministry. The Aix magistrates had no alternative but to accept these highly unusual conditions. At long last, on 19 July 1955 Pierre Carrias reluctantly granted Chenevier and Gillard permission to collect testimony. The Dominici case could thus be reopened without necessitating an annulment of the sentence, which had simply been suspended.7

  A fierce campaign was now fought in the press. On one side were those who argued that there had to be serious reasons to overturn a verdict that had been reached by due process and that Chenevier’s mission was a deliberate insult by arrogant Parisians who questioned the professional competence of their Provençal colleagues. On the other side were those who argued that the whole case had been badly bungled and that the authorities in Digne, Aix-en-Provence, and Marseille were desperately trying to defend a wholly inadequate dossier. There was also increasing suspicion that others were involved in the crime. In such an atmosphere it was difficult to see how Chenevier would be able to achieve much, unless attitudes on both sides changed significantly. The atmosphere had become further charged with Détective’s publication of a series of articles by Marcel Montarron, who had interviewed the seven jurors in the Dominici trial. Although under French law jurors were permitted to ask questions during the trial, they had remained silent throughout. Now they came under fire for having returned a false judgment.8

  Marcel-Jean Bernard, a peasant from Saumane, said that he had been disgusted by the number of barefaced lies and had not been persuaded by the arguments of Dominici’s lawyers. He said that he and his fellow jurors were simple men, not lawyers, who were merely asked to answer yes or no. He had some doubts about whether Gaston had killed Elizabeth but none over the other two murders.

  Jules Martin farmed at Saint-Tulle, where Gaston’s daughter Augusta Caillat lived. He said that he and his fellow jurors would be relieved if the Parisian policemen could clarify a number of obscure points and bring the guilty to justice.

  Marcel Aillaud, a peasant from Villemus, admitted that a number of issues had not been cleared up, but he was convinced that Gaston was involved in the first two murders. If there were accomplices, then he felt it was right to go after them.

  Louis Allaincourt, a retired butcher from Château-Arnoux, had been convinced by the photographs taken during the reconstruction of the murders. He also said it would be a relief if any accomplices were found.

  Paul Auzet, a peasant from Dombes, lived in a remote spot high in the mountains, where he cultivated lavender and tended his herd of goats. He said that he had been harassed for having been on the jury and announced that he wanted to have nothing to do with the new inquiry.

  Télamon Sube, a peasant from Pierrerue, knew Gaston; therefore, he should have been excluded from the jury. He hoped that the full truth would be revealed. He was aware of Gaston’s vile temper and violent disposition and had no doubt that he was guilty. Sube’s sympathy lay with “the Sardine,” whose life with Gaston had been “a Calvary.”9

  Jules Vendre, a butcher from Colmar-les-Alpes, washed his hands of the whole affair. He doubted that Chenevier’s inquiry would reveal anything at all because the Dominicis were a bunch of congenital liars.

  Feathers were ruffled in July when it was revealed that Orson Welles was making a documentary film on the Dominici affair for his TV series Around the World with Orson Welles. Minister for Industry and Commerce André Morice announced that Welles had not applied for official permission to make his film and was thus liable for prosecution. He would not permit the film to be exported from France without ministerial approval. Marcel Massot, the Gaullist deputy from the Basses-Alpes, had protested vigorously in the name of the local population about the making of the film. Massot had written to the minister in a tone of indignant outrage: “It would be scandalous if the publicity given to this sad affair were prolonged outside France by the cinema or television. . . . I am convinced that you will agree with me that, both from moral considerations and from the point of view of French propaganda, the exportation of such a film should not be tolerated.”10 Orson Welles managed to make his film, but it was a hasty and unsatisfactory collage of interviews with some of the protagonists that sheds precious little light on the affair. The film was a modest success in America but was banned in France.11

  Commissioners Chenevier and Gillard were welcomed to Digne by Deputy Prosecutor Louis Pagès’s somewhat ambiguous statement to the press that was published on the eve of their questioning of Gustave and Yvette. It read:

  We have now reached an important stage in the development of the new enquiry, to be conducted by the examining magistrate and the police officers. The facts that we have already collected underline the value of the previous work done by Commissioner Sébeille as well as the Examining Magistrate Périès, without whose diligence, perseverance and devotion to duty nothing we have done and shall do could ever have been or be achieved.

  Having received the advice of the lawyers and of all those involved in the case, it seemed to us to be important that before we begin the second part of our investigations, we should also hear those involved in the first inquiry, because we are determined not to overlook any of the elucidations that might be provided to whatever questions might be raised. There is a great deal of useful information available on the behavior of various people, which shows once again how conscientiously this drama and its protagonists have been studied.

  We in turn shall not fail to learn from them so as to conduct our inquiry and reach a conclusion, the nature of which discretion forbids us to make any prediction.12

  This remarkable paean to the work of Sébeille and Périès, the belittling of Chenevier and Gillard, and the implied assertion of Gaston Dominici’s sole guilt was all the more remarkable because Carrias had given Chenevier instructions to maintain strict professional discretion and not to talk to the press. Carrias did not want the whole inquiry to be discussed in an open forum.

  Regardless of the attitude of the authorities in Digne and Aix, Chenevier conducted a three-hour grilling of Gustave while his colleague, Gillard, questioned Yvette. Both interviews amounted to little effect beyond establishing beyond all doubt that they were both consummate liars. Nevertheless, Chenevier remained optimistic. Before returning to Paris on 12 August to await the outcome of Gustave and Yvette’s charges against Périès, Chenevier put a bold face on the affair by announcing to the press that he was sure that his investigation would bring “positive results.”13

  However, Carrias did not give Chenevier somewhat extended rogatory powers until 1 October. Due procedure required that for Chenevier and Gillard to interrogate Gaston, a magistrate had to act as an intermediary. Jacques Batigne was chosen simply because he had already visited Gaston in Les Baumettes in March. They overlooked the fact that Batigne had been remarkably unsuccessful in obtaining any fresh information and that he had still not bothered t
o examine the dossier.

  Batigne found Gaston no longer dressed in a prison uniform but in his old clothes and his trademark hat. His room look more like a hospital ward than a prison cell. When Batigne commented that he looked well and recovered from his illness, Gaston replied that his impression was a mistaken. After further attempts to humor him, Batigne suddenly said that he had a low opinion of Gustave’s character, whereupon Gaston heartily agreed. In response to a series of questions, Gaston stuck to his story that he had heard Gustave and Yvette discussing the crime. He remained calm when Batigne told him that his colleague in Digne had conducted a series of experiments that indicated that he could not possibly have eavesdropped on his son and daughter-in-law. Gaston simply muttered that they were unaware that he was listening.

  When Batigne asked what Gustave and Zézé had done during the night of the murders, Gaston replied he knew nothing. If he knew anything, he would be more than willing to talk. He denied having seen either Gustave or Zézé in the alfalfa field. He had not seen Zézé carrying the child. How could he have seen anything? He was in bed the whole time.

  Batigne was staggered. A vast amount of time and trouble had been spent on the case. Two senior police officers had been sent to investigate. Public opinion had been aroused. The law had been set in turmoil. Now the old man had nothing to say.

  Chenevier and Gillard went to Les Baumettes the next day, accompanied by Jacques Batigne. The examining magistrate opened the proceedings by saying that the two police officers had come all the way from Paris to hear his statement, but now he had withdrawn it. What did he now have to say? Gaston merely mumbled that he was innocent.

  Chenevier did not allow himself to be put off by Gaston’s retraction of all his previous claims. He stuck to a simple line of questioning. At what time had Zézé Perrin come to the Grand’ Terre? Did he sleep at the farmhouse? Had Gaston heard Gustave talk to anyone when he arrived back home after having seen Faustin Roure on 4 August? Did Gustave go alone to investigate the landslide, or did someone go with him? Did Gustave often bring Zézé to sleep at the Grand’ Terre on the several occasions when he was left alone at La Serre? Gaston refused to answer any of these questions. He could not remember anything. He knew nothing. He had seen nothing. He had nothing to say. Chenevier put an end to this pointless exercise by bidding Gaston farewell until they met again.