Inside The Mind Of A Killer

by Jean-Francois Abgrall

  ‘I was at the Emmaüs community of Château-Gontier when a mate who was watching TV turned round and told me I was wanted by the police. We called the gendarmerie, and here I am. But I haven’t done anything, honest!’

  Less than five minutes later, the usher led him into the court room. The press described what happened next. On catching sight of him, Francis Heaulme did not bat an eyelid, whereas ‘The Gaul’ was visibly ill at ease.

  ‘Do you know the defendant?’ asked the judge.

  ‘Yes,’ replied ‘The Gaul’.

  ‘What about the victim?’

  ‘I knew her too.’

  Then came a trying examination. The witness had difficulty understanding the questions. He seemed frightened and mumbled his answers.

  ‘I met Heaulme at the beach. I was on the rocks. He saw that girl. He went over to her, and that’s when I left to get a train.’

  As the questions became more precise, the witness became more specific.

  ‘I’d been on the beach for several days, and I’d noticed Aline, who sunbathed by the rocks. I met Heaulme in the nearby Emmaüs community. That Sunday, Heaulme had come up to me. He was drunk. I told him there was no point hassling the girl. He went up to her and grabbed her by the throat. I saw him do that when I looked over my shoulder. Heaulme was all wound up, you could see it in his eyes. I left. I was afraid he’d do the same to me.’

  The judge reminded the court that Francis Heaulme had told the gendarmes that the witness had been present for the entire time, but ‘The Gaul’ stated that he had left at that point. Maître Gonzalez de Gaspard spoke and referred to failure to assist a person in danger.* The witness replied that his conscience was clear, even though it was true that he had not taken the precaution of calling the police. Heaulme rose and spoke too:

  ‘I don’t know this man. I’ve never seen him before.’

  The prosecution took the floor:

  ‘Then why did you go over and shake his hand on the day the reconstruction was staged?’

  Heaulme replied:

  ‘To please François Abgrall.’

  The witness was then free to retire. This time, the usher called my name. In the corridor I passed ‘The Gaul’ and the police officer escorting him. He gave me a smile, proffered his hand and said: ‘Go on, my friend!’ In passing, he slipped into my hand a tiny Emmaüs community calendar. I didn’t have time just then to dwell on this gesture or its signification. I later realised that actually he was trying to give me the only wealth he had, his calling card, the symbol of his respectability.

  I entered the court room. The witnesses’ entrance faced the dock. Francis Heaulme was in front of me, our eyes met and he did not reply to my discreet ‘Hello’. There was absolute silence, the only sound my footsteps on the parquet floor. I felt as though time had stopped.

  The judge asked me to give my evidence. I began, and slowly described the investigation, the leads we’d followed up and the reasons for ruling them out. Then the similarity between the alibis for this murder and for the one in Courthézon, near Avignon, which confirmed my suspicions. And lastly, I described at length the behaviour of Francis Heaulme during his interviews. I reproduced the chilling gesture showing the neck hold on the victim as he had demonstrated it in Strasbourg. I reminded the court that the forensic scientist had drawn our attention to it at the time. The judge requested clarification. Then I mentioned the sketch and the spontaneity of the confessions.

  A few moments later, it was defence counsel Pierre Gonzalez de Gaspard’s turn to question me:

  ‘Were you, Mr Abgrall, and this is very important, on first-name terms with my client during these interviews?’

  I replied in the affirmative to the judge, as is customary. The lawyer was jubilant and went on, addressing the jury:

  ‘You heard, this gendarme was on first-name terms with Francis Heaulme throughout the interviews. Heaulme, who can’t cope with pressure, as the psychiatrists have explained, this fabricator who accuses himself of crimes that he did not commit, this gullible person. What credibility can his confessions have?’

  Amazed at the violence of his outburst, I couldn’t help replying:

  ‘It was Francis Heaulme who started calling me by my first name. Ask him.’

  Without even being invited, Francis Heaulme spoke and confirmed this was so, but his counsel insisted:

  ‘Mr Abgrall, you are a likeable man. Your whole attitude shows it. I am convinced that my client’s confessions were obtained through trust and kindness. Could that not be called psychological abuse?’

  ‘You know, if all I had to do was use his first name and be nice to him to get him to talk to me about all the murders he’s been involved in, then it wouldn’t have taken me three years and we wouldn’t be where we are today.’

  In the end, we left it at that.

  Once I had given my evidence, I decided to stay and listen to the hearing. The testimony of Éric, the last witness, was quick and confirmed the defendant’s behaviour. Even so, I was worried. I could sense that the defence counsel’s repeated attacks had unsettled the jury. Nothing was certain.

  Then came the closing speeches. Francis Heaulme’s lawyer tried to minimise the impact of ‘The Gaul’s’ testimony and cleverly to sow doubt in the jury’s minds by reversing the roles. According to him, Heaulme could not have killed, as he had been in hospital. If he described the Moulin Blanc murder in such detail, it was because someone had told him about it. Probably the killer himself. Heaulme not having been present, there was only one person who admitted having been near the victim at the time of the crime: ‘The Gaul’. This carefully orchestrated demonstration had the desired effect. In the court room, doubt could be read on many faces. For a few moments, I envisaged the worst: Francis Heaulme’s acquittal.

  The judge and jury retired. An hour and a half later, the court filled up once more. Verdict: twenty years’ imprisonment. It was not the maximum sentence, but justice had been done. The convict showed no emotion. His gaze blank, he gave nothing away, as if he had withdrawn deep into himself, probably into that universe filled with morbid dreams where he was no longer that unloved creature forsaken by the real world.

  In any case, Aline Pérès’s killer was not about to claim any more victims, especially as further trials were in the offing. Probably further convictions too. I was relieved. Francis Heaulme’s killing spree had come to a full stop here, in Quimper. At least, that is what I believed.

  * Translator’s note: Under the French penal code, ‘non-assistance à personne en danger’ is counted an offence.

  12

  The last visit

  8 June 1994 is a date that will always stand out in my mind. After tracking Aline Pérès’s killer for months, then interviewing him, questioning him and trying to decipher him for five long years, I was now being asked to bring my investigation to an end. This was therefore the last afternoon that I would spend with Francis Heaulme. A last visit, a mixture of disappointment and relief. Disappointment because I was now forced to abandon my investigations into the crimes of this man, relief too because those years spent on the killer’s trail had sometimes been a burden.

  As usual, we met in the tiny visiting room of Reims prison which could barely accommodate the two of us. The rapid handshake I insisted on always had the same effect on Heaulme. Some psychotics experience physical contact as an attack on their person. And yet it was a sort of game between us. Visibly preoccupied, the minute he entered the room the words spilled out:

  ‘On Wednesday, I was going up the stairs, minding my own business, and an Arab – he’d been transferred – smashed a chair over my head. I wasn’t hurt at all. Then he started kicking me in the spine. It was black and blue for a while. The warders came rushing over to separate us at once. I was wearing my watch and the strap’s bust.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘Because of little Joris …’

  So that was his problem. I had not come to listen to him moan about his person
al difficulties, but to tell him I would not be seeing him ever again. I knew very well that our paths would cross again at future trials, but we would not have the same opportunity for these cosy little conversations.

  ‘Listen, my investigation is over, it’s going to be very difficult for me to come and see you.’

  ‘Is it the holidays now?’

  ‘No, that’s not it, I won’t be able to come and see you any more.’

  He wasn’t listening to me but started talking about his sister’s last visit. She was going to take part in a TV programme. He was no different, his mind was always elsewhere. This was perhaps the moment to pick up the thread.

  ‘Francis, have you told your sister everything you’ve done?’

  After a silence, he said:

  ‘I’ve half told her …’

  ‘Why don’t you tell her?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘She’ll find out.’

  ‘She already knows, she already knows, from the papers, she already knows!’

  ‘I don’t know what you want, Francis, but you’re bound to have more difficult trials, and you’re likely to receive much longer sentences because you’re lying. Of course it’s up to you, but if I were you, I’d say, “Yes, I did that to such-and-such a person.”’

  ‘What is Article 122?’ he burst out.

  Article 122 rather than any other … It was no coincidence. This article of the penal code covers diminished criminal responsibility. Its application may enable the author of a crime to be sent to an appropriate psychiatric establishment rather than to prison. I knew what he was getting at. He was lucid. The psychiatrists deemed him responsible for his actions in the eyes of the law. That meant he would be locked up. So I preferred not to answer his question.

  I allowed silence to reign. It went on for ages, and then Francis Heaulme spoke again. He referred to the Pont-à-Mousson murder, that of Lyonelle Gineste found dead in the middle of a field in 1984. I was no longer interested. He had already gone into the details with the Nancy investigators. I wanted to tell him that now everyone was familiar with his little games he might do better to change his attitude and stop this futile game of cat and mouse.

  The Pont-à-Mousson case, presented as the first time he had acted out his murder fantasies, had the indisputable hallmark of a practised killer, as several of us had noted. This was not Heaulme’s first crime. Soon, other investigators would come and interview him. I tried to get him to understand this.

  ‘I’m telling you straight, Francis, there are lots of other cases that have come to light, for which you haven’t been questioned, as you know only too well.’

  ‘Well, you’re questioning me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, and you’re going to start playing your games again. Why don’t you tell me everything?’

  ‘I don’t know … I haven’t got the guts.’

  Before even asking the questions, I could envisage the answers. Francis Heaulme would never open up, it was clear. But I was glad to talk to him without there being anything at stake, without the pressure. We continued our conversation, which invariably returned to the murders. He never let up. He explained to me in detail things that he had not said when in custody and withdrew statements he had made about other cases where he had given ample proof of his involvement to the investigators. He was still trying to convince, probably himself as much as anyone else. I wondered whether he realised how inconsistent he was. In any case, he knew exactly when he could adopt this type of behaviour: when he was outside the frame. Outside the frame of custody, at a time when he could say anything without there being any risk. It had become a reflex with him. He continued his monologue.

  ‘I know I won’t go to prison. I’ll be sent to a psychiatric hospital … That’s what I need.’

  I remained silent, but I believed he was right. And yet it was too late. The experts had decided otherwise. Psychiatry could do nothing for him, one of them had declared in the witness box in the Finistère court of assizes. Before returning to Rennes and washing my hands of him once and for all, I wanted to discuss the real motivation for his crimes. In spite of everything I knew about this character, the secret still escaped me.

  ‘Do you know why you commit these crimes, do you have an idea?’

  ‘It’s because of the alcohol, and my visions. But since I’ve been taking this new treatment, I’ve been better.’

  ‘And do you remember all the murders?’

  ‘It’s buried in my mind.’

  ‘Do you relive them sometimes?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what do you feel?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’

  ‘And were all the murders quick?’

  ‘Yeah … I don’t remember.’

  ‘And did the people always try to run away?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Were there any that you missed?’

  ‘Missed? Sometimes, yeah, several.’

  ‘Which ones did you miss?’

  ‘Just people … nobody special.’

  ‘When did you begin to have problems?’

  ‘When we … In 1984 … I was in the car.’

  He was harking back to the killing of Lyonelle Gineste again. Once again, he thought it would be useful to remind me that he was only the witness to the girl’s murder.

  ‘Did you have any problems before 1984?’

  ‘Before? No, I was working.’

  I didn’t believe him and told him so. I advised him to talk to his lawyer about it. To tell him everything, even if some things had to be kept secret, so that at least somebody would be aware of the problem. Francis Heaulme remained unreceptive. Even after five years, it seemed impossible to break through his defences. He returned to the Quimper court sentence, wanted the verdict quashed. He still thought he had a chance of being sent to a psychiatric hospital. I continued:

  ‘I have to go back to Brittany. I’m going home for a while. You’ve led me a dance, you’ve travelled all over, haven’t you?’

  ‘That’s all finished. It was the alcohol,’ he added fatalistically. ‘Like I told the psychiatrists, it’s the alcohol that does the bad things,’ he said speaking of the murders.

  ‘Have you ever told a single person about everything that you’ve done?’

  ‘No. I keep it all to myself.’

  ‘What about your friend Raymond?’

  The Raymond in question had been convicted of the murder of a girl walking home from a party in Blainville-sur-l’Eau in 1990. Raymond was staying at the local Emmaüs community which Francis Heaulme had left the day before the murder. The day before, as in Brest. The killer repeated his friend’s parting words:

  ‘Raymond said to me, “If you leave, I’ll do something stupid!” and he did. It was nothing to do with me.’

  Then, for no reason, Francis Heaulme changed the subject. He told me, utterly convinced, how he had had a conversation with the father of young Laurence Guillaume, killed in Metz.

  ‘It was during the reconstruction. I went up to him and told him everything. How his daughter had died, by accident.’

  I knew he was lying to me, that everything he said was untrue. He had never spoken to this man, but I let him go on. I was still observing him. Actually he was giving the version he had served up to the investigators a few weeks earlier. He could not help presenting himself as the person thanks to whom the truth could be established, the good guy, and not the author of all those horrific crimes. His way of deflecting the conversation was a sign that things were getting too close for comfort. As I said nothing, he carried on. Now, he was giving me very precise explanations of what had happened in the gym in Périgueux, where the young conscript had been murdered. He described more vividly than ever how the victim had died. In his perversity, he knew that there was no danger. I let him speak without interrupting him, and then I asked:

  ‘With these “cock-ups” of yours, have there been more women or more men?’

  ‘Men!’

  After a silence
, I asked:

  ‘There are more men?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But so far you’ve only mentioned one. What happened to the others?’

  Francis Heaulme realised what he had just told me. He stared at me coldly and replied:

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  He immediately went back to the assault he’d suffered in prison. That was how he regained his composure. Once again, he had deftly deflected the conversation. He started talking about a woman who was moved by his fate and had written to him. I jumped at the opportunity:

  ‘What does she write to you about?’

  ‘Well, she says I must tell the truth, that I must tell the truth.’

  ‘The truth, Francis. I know you, you’ll never tell the truth. It’s not in your nature, am I right?’

  He sat staring at me without replying. I told him that was not the reason I was there. I reminded him that during our last conversation he had asked me to come back, so I was coming back before returning to Brittany once and for all. With the utmost seriousness, he then asked me to investigate some of the mail he had received. He had the feeling that some of the letters came from journalists looking for information … That made me smile, briefly. Then we talked about his family life, the death of his mother when he was twenty-six years old.

  He spoke about his father, whom he resented for having made a new life. He claimed he had written to him, but had never received a reply. Then he talked about his chronic alcoholism again, which he said started when he was seventeen or eighteen. Inevitably, even though we avoided the word, we came back to his crimes:

  ‘When you did those things, did you forget about them straight away?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well … I’d see red. Pow! … and then I’d return to normal. Then I’d leave. The next day, I couldn’t remember what I’d done.’

  ‘You do remember, because you’ve given us all the details. What happened?’