Inside The Mind Of A Killer

by Jean-Francois Abgrall

  The defendant immediately appealed against this decision. A year went by and the case was in the news again. In April 2002, the Lyon court of assizes was invaded by a horde of journalists and people avid to gain access at last to all the pieces of this puzzle, since the law did not insist on the trial being held in camera. This third trial was exceptional in that it was to last for two weeks.

  Two versions of the truth were being presented: the confessions of the accused, which he later retracted, and the physical presence of a known killer at the scene of the crime. The courts had therefore ordered a further investigation. For a year, the Metz criminal investigators had explored every possible avenue. The initial investigation that incriminated Patrick Dils had been put under the microscope. No detail was overlooked. Some new elements, both in his favour and against him, had been included. At the same time, Francis Heaulme had been questioned again and his stories checked. Witnesses had been found, some of whom had been in the vicinity of the crime scene. The quest for truth was paramount. The presiding judge of the Lyon court of assizes passed all this evidence to all the parties concerned. This new trial was therefore different from the previous two.

  The first days of the trial were devoted to studying the personality of the defendant, the crime, the investigative techniques used and the charges against him. Exceptionally, the jurors took an active part in the proceedings, so that notes were being passed round on either side of the judge. They contained unanswered questions. This determination to uncover the truth about the murder of 28 September 1986 was gruelling for the victims’ families, who once more had to lay bare their suffering in public. The counsel for the prosecution was the first to raise the fundamental problems. He pointed out to the police officer in charge of the case that the window of time when Patrick Dils would have had the opportunity to act was extremely narrow. He challenged the police’s conviction:

  ‘In ten minutes, he would really have to have had a very strong motive! I’ve been working in the court of assizes for twenty years, and usually there’s an identifiable motive. In this case, there isn’t.’

  He pointed out inconsistencies in Patrick Dils’s explanations which lacked coherence. He stressed the failure to follow up vital leads, like the witness who had mentioned passing a man covered in blood who was not the accused. Lastly, he noted that Patrick Dils had not revealed anything that would only have been known to the murderer, contrary to what the former inspector had claimed. Furthermore, at no time had mention been made of the fact that one of the victims’ underpants had been pulled down, a detail described by Francis Heaulme. To conclude, the counsel for the prosecution read the very detailed statement of another suspect, questioned a few weeks before Patrick Dils, who also, astonishingly, had confessed to the double murder. So Dils was not the only one. The man’s name was Henri L. Like Henri L, Francis Heaulme’s imaginary friend on Moulin Blanc beach …

  The flaws in the initial investigation had been revealed. Despite everything, the doubts as to Patrick Dils’s guilt had not been completely dispelled. In the court room, many people were waiting for the proof, the decisive piece of evidence.

  The witnesses succeeded each other on the stand and the atmosphere changed depending on whether they strengthened the prosecution’s case or that of the defence. At the end of the first week of the trial, opinions were divided as to whether the defendant was guilty or not. At last the moment came for my testimony. The judge had ensured that I would be the last witness. That way, she said, ‘we’ll have plenty of time to listen to you’. Her tone, bordering on the maternal, was soothing, but behind this approach was all the power of an experienced magistrate who knew the case inside out and was aware of the limits of human actions.

  ‘The court is gathered here today, we could say, because of you, because of the report you wrote. So, Mr Abgrall, what have you got to tell us?’

  It was a solemn moment. The things I was going to talk about had no bearing on the defendant. Everybody was waiting. They must all have the chance to evaluate the credibility of Francis Heaulme’s declarations and must have the key to understanding the character who would be facing them the next day. Explaining this man’s psychology clearly was no easy matter.

  Slowly I retraced the Moulin Blanc investigation and my meetings with Francis Heaulme. I mentioned the similarities between the murders, his presence at the scene of the crime, the little stories he told me in prison, his gruesome dreams, the transpositions, Bouboule, the interview protocols, the taboo words, the importance of the sketches, the special unit … I tried not to omit anything, so as to show that despite the apparent complexity, Heaulme actually operated in a very straightforward manner. Francis Heaulme was telling a single, unique story, that of his journey, in which he mixed up all his murders. Any interpretation only made sense if you looked at the whole picture. I pointed out the recurrent elements of his testimonies. In each case, he saw the victims alive, then witnessed them being attacked. He tried to intervene and prevent ‘the other’ and sometimes killed. He always presented himself as the good guy. If he did admit to the crime, it was only momentarily, then he retracted his confession. His confessions were of no importance in themselves. The only thing that counted were the verifiable clues he provided.

  More than three hours went by. The jurors kept passing notes around, questions were fired from all sides. The judge invited me to give my analysis of the Montigny case. I highlighted the similarities between the names: a Henri L at Moulin Blanc, another at Montigny-lès-Metz. The instance of the anglers who took the witness stand, who had given a blood-spattered Francis Heaulme a lift in their Renault 4 on the day of the murder, and those in the Joris case who were non-existent.

  The lawyers then cross-examined me. The counsel for the plaintiffs criticised the notion of Francis Heaulme having a ‘signature’, underlined by the double murder in Montigny-lès-Metz. And yet there was nothing random in the way the murderer selected his victims and operated. His choices, conscious or otherwise, were tantamount to a signature, on a par with a fingerprint. It was necessary to use other means of deciphering a crime scene. The signature was also apparent in the way Heaulme talked about the murder, in the omissions or the arrangement of his memories. This was another way in which Francis Heaulme and his accomplices had been caught.

  On 16 April at 9 a.m., Captain H and Chief Thierry P from the Metz criminal investigation unit took the witness stand. These investigators had been in charge of gathering further information and reviewing the initial investigation. They gave a slide presentation showing the chronology and the positions of the witnesses. Each witness, on the afternoon of the murder, was shown on a large panel moving forward on the map of the district. It was clear that the last sighting of the young victims was around 5.15 p.m. At 6.30 p.m., members of their families started looking for them. At that time, Patrick Dils was still away for the weekend with his parents. Captain H gave a report on his additional investigations. He stated that Francis Heaulme had given some details of this crime and that he had checked a number of points in the original file. This had led him to doubt Patrick Dils’s involvement in the murder. The importance of their testimonies was such that they were subjected to a barrage of questions. Captain H did not leave the court of assizes until 9 p.m.

  On 17 April, at 2 p.m., when Francis Heaulme appeared, our eyes met. Unusually, he had difficulty sustaining my gaze. Thinner, and visibly very weak, he no longer resembled the Heaulme that I knew. His salt-and-pepper hair had been shaved, which made him look like an old man. Wearing his usual grey sweater, he looked lost. When he walked past me, I noticed that he was trying to work out where he was. He did not seem his normal self. Then, shortly after he had begun to speak, he asked if he could sit down. He explained that he was on medication for phlebitis.

  Invited by the judge to describe what he had seen on 28 September 1986, Francis Heaulme declared:

  ‘If I had killed the kids, I’d have said so in Reims. I don’t want to confess to a murder I did
not commit. That wasn’t me. It’s not my style. I use an Opinel and I strangle with my bare hands.’

  A long murmur ran around the court. The examination lasted for two hours, during which Francis Heaulme claimed to have lied to the gendarmes, then he retreated behind his contradictions. He didn’t want to take the rap he said. However, he added that he had thought a lot about Patrick Dils, and said: ‘I don’t think it was him. He’s too young.’

  This was going nowhere. Suddenly, Francis Heaulme started talking about another murder:

  ‘I’ve always admitted the murders I did. I do care about the families, I do feel remorse. There was a business in the south, at Juan-les-Pins, the Joris Viville case. That kid I did strangle and there was another man with me, a nurse (he gave the name). He put the boy in the pine wood, he was the one who finished him off. He said to me afterwards that if I said anything, he would kill me. When I appeared in court, they had an identity parade. I didn’t say anything, but he was there.’

  The expressions on some of the jurors’ faces changed. They had just understood. Francis Heaulme always gave additional information, but about another case. His appearance came to an end shortly afterwards.

  The next day, the defence speeches of the three lawyers for the plaintiffs – the victims’ families – turned into indictments against Patrick Dils. Their conviction did not seem to have been shaken by all the testimonies and evidence presented. They tried to wipe the Francis Heaulme episode out of the jury’s minds by insisting on the precision of the accused’s confessions. As regards the serial killer, they called him a ‘substitute culprit’.

  The counsel for the prosecution’s closing speech summed up the case:

  ‘Everything seems dubious to me. I don’t know whether Patrick Dils’s confessions relate to a criminal act or are pure fantasy.’

  He stressed the ‘irregularities’ in the initial investigation and the way the law had been stretched. Then he raised the issue of Francis Heaulme.

  ‘Heaulme is not a bolt out of the blue. We have to recognise that if the investigators at the time had known about him, they would have followed the Heaulme lead very closely … He has always confirmed his presence in Rue Vénizélos. He is astonishingly familiar with the scene of the crime, which he describes in perfect detail … This man saw the two boys with their heads crushed before anybody else, and one of them had his trousers down.’

  He repeated Healme’s statement that this was not his usual way of operating, which was strangling bare-handed or stabbing with an Opinel knife.

  ‘He professes the sordid to protect himself from the horrific, that is Francis Heaulme’s true style.’

  He then spoke about the limitations of the scenario outlined by the original prosecution against Patrick Dils. He did not believe a psychologist’s interpretation that imputed his acting out of his fantasies to the ‘pressure cooker’ effect, an explosion of sudden violence that is undetectable and does not repeat itself. As far as he was concerned, nothing had been established beyond a doubt in this case. Finally he addressed the defendant:

  ‘If you benefit from the fact that there is the shadow of a doubt, please have the grace to keep your head down. You have taken the place of the murderer, don’t now try and take that of the victims. You have only been a victim of yourself.’

  The prosecutor did not call for a sentence.

  The roles of the two defence counsels had already been allocated. Maître Becker came in first, and his job was to highlight the inconsistencies in the initial investigation, the infringements of the defendant’s rights. He evoked the similarities between the confessions received from two other men. This was disturbing. He emphasised the fragility of his client in 1986, an immature adolescent, incapable of having committed this crime which he had constantly denied since. He had never believed that his client was guilty. In a similar vein, the second counsel, Maître Florand, pointed out the holes in the case. He wondered about the likelihood of Francis Heaulme arriving at the scene of a murder of which he was not the author. He stressed the implausibility of Patrick Dils’s confession and questioned the competence of the head of the investigation at the time.

  And finally, it was the defendant who had the last word. He addressed the bench, and then the families:

  ‘I’m not the sort of person who climbs onto the prison roof to shout and scream. I am Patrick Dils and Patrick Dils does not do that. I am sorry to have caused you suffering through my lies and my behaviour. I never wanted to cause anybody pain. I am innocent. I did not take the lives of your children.’

  It was 8.30 p.m., on 24 April 2002, when the acquittal was announced. A clamour of joy greeted the verdict. The judge asked the public to be quiet as she felt the noise was unseemly. The victims’ families were devastated, and their lawyers tried to console them. The grandmother of one of the boys made it clear that she still believed Dils was guilty. Meanwhile, Patrick Dils quietly wept, then regained his composure. The defence counsels were delighted. The defendant’s father erupted with joy in his wife’s arms. We knew that a major event had just occurred. Everything happened very fast. The court room emptied in a joyful commotion. The counsel for the prosecution observed the scene, with a broad smile.

  I felt a surge of profound relief. It was a brave verdict. I now knew that Francis Heaulme’s ‘dreams’ had been understood.

  Afterword

  Quite unintentionally, Francis Heaulme had often revealed the failings of the legal and medical institutions. For years, this man from nowhere had left a trail of victims behind him unhindered. How had such a simple soul – ‘with a deranged mind’ as he had so often been described in the press – been able to slip through the net so easily? What kind of system allows a dangerous individual to stay in dozens of psychiatric establishments and then blithely to continue as before? Why had our investigative techniques not enabled us to arrest him sooner? Was prison really the right place for him?

  Of course, we can argue that these cases happened some time ago, and it is always easy to criticise with hindsight. These days, patient confidentiality is so sacrosanct that witnesses say nothing, or very little. If medical records are not available, there is no proper follow-up for patients who are constantly on the move. Thus, vast amounts of information constituting an important indicator of a person’s dangerousness remain buried, as there is no cross-referencing. A new file is opened for each new patient arriving in a medical establishment. It contains details of their current problem, but remains for ever silent after the patient’s departure. That way the legal and the medical never mix. A pity, especially when the expert psychiatrists and psychologists appointed by the courts then refer, in the court of assizes, to the dangerousness of the defendant. How many people were aware of it before they come to the attention of the law?

  As for the investigation techniques used, I recognise that they were sometimes primitive. These days, a person’s criminal career can only be legally retraced through their convictions. Hence, if the person does not have a criminal record, we know nothing, or almost nothing. For crimes displaying a practice, or a criminal signature, the evidence showing that the act is purely a repetition remains dispersed. Each investigator works on one crime and cannot go beyond. The investigating magistrate is obstructed by this same rule. And yet, the systematic drawing up and checking of a suspect’s background would make it possible to identify a criminal path, an itinerary … Maybe we’ll achieve this one day.

  Fortunately, real scientific and technical advances have been made. There are countless reliable investigation procedures and means of gathering proof, DNA fingerprints being a prime example. These are left by everybody, all the time. It is enough to touch an item of clothing, lick a stamp, lose a hair or hold a book to enable a DNA sample to be taken. Even though the DNA database is restricted to certain categories of delinquents and criminals, it provides valuable information. This is definitely a plus.

  On another level, databases have been improved. Information technology, combined wi
th a more comprehensive inputting of the parameters of a case, has led to more efficient cross-referencing and the identification of similarities between cases. It has become routine to carry out a criminal analysis on major cases, and this has brought to light other serial killer cases.

  However, that is not enough. Investigators are aware that there is a lack of training in criminal psychology. Each criminal investigation officer is ready to look for the proof, that concrete element that reassures and physically proves that somebody has committed a crime, but when that proof is lacking, there are only witness statements and suspects. That is where it becomes necessary to draw on different disciplines. How is it possible to understand and expose an individual’s actions through questioning and traditional approaches when that person is in a different world? We need other tools. The interpretation of a criminal situation, analysing a person’s speech – everything has to be measured differently. They are often full of invisible clues for the investigator or the magistrate who will sometimes discern these without being able to name them. That is what some people call ‘instinct’ or ‘having a nose’. For example, the place chosen by the murderer, the victim … these are all clues related to the suspect’s personality. This information is available to the investigator, but it is not necessarily picked up. Psychological and other approaches are even more important in missing persons investigations. If homicide is suspected, the absence of a body makes it impossible to establish links between modes of operation, so where does one begin? These needs became apparent when the institution started to bring in private criminologists or psychologists. Nowadays, things are changing. Some psychologists have been taken on by police and gendarme training colleges, and Rennes university has set up an Institute of Criminology which is open to investigators from different bodies, magistrates and expert psychologists who are trained in analysing criminal situations. The multidisciplinary approach and the exchange of expertise, without replacing the traditional investigation, will certainly thwart criminal careers like that of Francis Heaulme. It is foreseeable that this type of teaching will be directly integrated in the training of all those involved in criminal investigations.