Back at the Grand’ Terre life continued as normal, although the atmosphere was undoubtedly tense. The Dominicis waited anxiously for Gustave to return. In the late afternoon of 13 November a journalist told Gaston that his son had admitted that he had left the house three times during the night of 4–5 August. He was both shattered and furious when he heard the news, exclaiming, “He said that? In that case he’s fucked!” Gaston went away muttering and shaking with rage.1
Commandant Bernier of the Digne gendarmerie detachment went in person to the Grand’ Terre to collect Gaston. They arrived at seven o’clock that evening back at the law courts, where a crowd of journalists was waiting. Gaston was taken to the library. He pretended to be casual and relaxed, browsing through the books, gazing at the ceiling, rolling his eyes, and whistling. Then he grew impatient, took his hat and cane, and announced that he was going home, “because you’re starting to piss me off!” Sébeille and his assistant Henri Ranchin forced him back into his armchair, and Gaston calmed down somewhat when Sébeille hammered on the table, forcefully reminding him that he was now in the law courts and must show due respect. Ranchin also told him that they knew where he had hidden the carbine. It was on a shelf in the shed.2
According to the official record they gave Gaston a bowl of soup, which he ate with gusto. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he calmly announced that he now intended to smoke his pipe. This was too much for Sébeille, who said that he was accused of murder, having been denounced by his sons Gustave and Clovis. Gaston muttered that they were both liars and calmly puffed his pipe. The commissioner saw no point in continuing the cross-examination. He left at 10:30 p.m., leaving him in the custody of his associates, Inspectors Ranchin, Antoine Cullioli, and Lucien Tardieu.
Having spent the night together, without any supervision, it was hardly surprising that when Gustave was questioned the next morning, his replies were identical to those of his brother. He said that he immediately recognized the carbine, adding that it had been in his father’s possession for a number of years and that he had probably gotten it from some American troops. He claimed never to have used it himself. His father used it quite often when hunting wild boar. He thought there were two magazines that Gaston kept loaded. On 5 August he had noticed that the gun was no longer on the shelf in the shed, so he realized that his father had used the weapon to commit the crime. His father never told him which gun he had used.
Abel Bastide, a mason and expert truffle hunter from Lurs, also had suggested that Gaston might have obtained the gun from American soldiers. He had been working on the roof of the Grand’ Terre when some American soldiers stopped at the farmhouse in 1944. They had shown how the gun worked by firing a few rounds. At this point Bastide had climbed down from the roof and was thus unable to see whether anyone handed it to Gaston.
When questioned on this point, Gaston admitted that Bastide had repaired his roof but claimed that the story about the carbine was simply village tittle-tattle. He said that Bastide was something of a crackpot. He lived alone, inhabited a fantasy world, and was considered by the villagers to be a simpleton. As a hopeless alcoholic, his testimony was deemed to be so threadbare that he was not called as a witness during Gaston Dominici’s trial. It was also suggested that the M1 might have been stolen from a local farmer. After all, no one would have reported the loss of an illegal weapon.3
News that Gustave and Clovis had accused their father of the murders had been leaked to the press along with the statement that the identity of the murderer would be revealed within twenty-four hours, so the next morning Sébeille showed Gaston the headlines in the local papers announcing that he was the assassin.4 Gaston flew into a terrible rage, launching a series of invectives, but was interrupted when Périès arrived and asked Sébeille to come with him and escort Gustave and Clovis to the Grand’ Terre. There they would find out where Gaston had kept the rifle.
They were met by a furious bunch of Dominici women, vociferously supported by Yvette’s mother, Louise Barth. The most violent were Augusta Caillat and her daughter Marie-Claude. They had to be physically restrained by the police, but not before Augusta hit Francis Rico, a journalist from Nice, across the hand with an iron bar so hard that he was unable to work for a month. Rico sued Augusta Caillat for damages at the Digne court.5 Augusta also threatened to kill Sébeille, saying, “At least I wouldn’t go to prison for nothing!”6 Her daughter waved a heavy stick and asked what they had given the brothers—“those traitors, those bastards”—to drink. Gustave did his best to avoid eye contact with the women, while Clovis ignored them, saying that they were all out of their minds. Yvette was in a frantic state, screaming that neither her father-in-law nor her husband was a criminal.
Ignoring the mounting chorus of imprecations, the police went about their business. Gustave and Clovis were led separately to the shed. Both indicated that the rifle was kept on the lower shelf on the right-hand side upon entering.
Yvette was ordered to come with the two brothers for questioning. She went to get her three children, and the party set off for Digne. Gustave, Clovis, and Yvette sat together in the police Citroën, thereby having ample opportunity to connive. On the way the police cavalcade stopped at Peyruis to pick up Clovis’s wife, Rose. At Digne the two Dominici families were left free to have lunch, while the police tucked in at an adjacent table. Such an astonishingly lax procedure was typical of the entire investigation.
The interrogations began anew at 4:00 p.m. Périès questioned Yvette. Gustave’s testimony to the contrary, she claimed to know nothing of the crime. When confronted with Gustave and Clovis initially, she had hurled abuse at her husband and brother-in-law for having denounced their father, but they both had said Gaston had confessed to having committed the crime. Gustave also had told her about the murder weapon and where it had been concealed. Although during his cross-examination the previous evening, Gustave had claimed to have told his wife everything, and he now apologized for having kept quiet. He said that he had done so because of the delicate state of her health due to her pregnancy. Yvette put on an impressive performance, first of indignation at the brothers’ allegations against her father-in-law, then of surprise at their revelations, and finally of full acceptance of their version of events. Obviously her main concern was to make sure that her husband was kept above suspicion.
Meanwhile, Sébeille, assisted by Inspectors Cullioli, Ranchin, and Tardieu, questioned Gaston for four hours that afternoon. Getting nothing from him, they handed him over to Périès at 6:00 p.m. The examining magistrate merely ordered that he should remain in police custody and then went home. Sébeille and his three assistants went to dine in a local restaurant.
Gaston spent the night in the library of the law courts. First, he was guarded by Pierre Prudhomme, head of the National Police in Digne. Dominici remained silent, refusing to answer any questions. He merely shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. Prudhomme then handed him over to two of his subordinates, Victor Guérino and Joseph Bocca, who were under the supervision of Sgt. Marius Sabatier.7 The concierge brought him some food, but Gaston refused to eat.
Guérino chatted with him in their dialect. They had a common interest in hunting. Gaston grew increasingly sentimental, saying that he had cried throughout his wedding night and that he now had fourteen or fifteen grandchildren. Suddenly he burst into tears, muttering, “Ah, the little one, the little one!” The policeman asked him what was bothering him and suggested that it had all perhaps been an accident. Gaston nodded in agreement and blurted out, “Exactly! It was an accident. They attacked me. I killed all three of them.” During the hour that remained of Guérino’s watch, Gaston said that he had gone to look at the landslide and, as a hunter, had taken the rifle along with him “just in case.” He claimed that Jack Drummond, taking him for a marauder, had attacked him, whereupon he had fired and “then the sparks began to fly.”8
Guérino suggested that Gaston should repeat this confession to Sébeille, but he flatly refused, saying that the commissioner could go to hell. He’d had more than enough of “his shit.” He did agree to talk to “the president,” by whom he meant Commissioner Prudhomme, a man in whom he had every confidence. Gaston told Guérino that he could not write and that Prudhomme would be able to help him make a rough draft of a statement.
At this point Guérino was relieved by Joseph Bocca, who was accompanied by the concierge Simon Giraud (a retired gendarme) and Sergeant Sabatier. Guérino had Gaston repeat his willingness to make a full statement to Commissioner Prudhomme. He did so, but then he added that he was innocent and that he was merely taking the blame to save others. Sabatier went immediately to fetch Prudhomme from his home.
Bocca was now alone with Gaston, who rambled on about his dog and his farm. He blurted out that on their wedding night, his wife had admitted to being pregnant by another man and that she had said, “If you want us to be happy, you must be deaf, dumb, and blind.” He now altered his story, saying that he had got up at four o’clock in the morning on August 5 to tend his goats. He returned to the Grand’ Terre sometime between seven-thirty and eight o’clock. Yvette then told him that there had been a triple crime that night. He went on to say that the whole family was against him. Having first said that he knew that the carbine was not in the shed that night, he went on to claim that he had not seen it since he bought it from some Americans during the war. He had given it to Gustave, who had repaired it and then hid it. It was Gustave who had committed all three murders, but he would take the blame and save the honor of his grandchildren.9
The police were now confronted with a confusing series of confessions and accusations. Both Clovis and Gustave had accused their father. Gaston had confessed but then retracted it and accused Gustave. Although he explained his initial confession as an attempt to take the blame and save the family’s honor, how would this confession save the family’s honor?
Meanwhile, Sergeant Sabatier arrived at Commissioner Prudhomme’s house and informed him of Gaston’s confession. Prudhomme was not authorized to act on his own, so the two men went to see Sébeille, who was dining with his inspectors at a small restaurant Chez Julia. The commissioner, who was waiting for Prudhomme outside the restaurant, got into Prudhomme’s car and drove to the law courts. Neither Sébeille nor Prudhomme saw fit to inform Périès, who alone could have given Prudhomme authority to take a sworn statement.
Prudhomme entered the library shortly before 8:30 p.m. Gaston immediately stated that although he was innocent, he had decided to confess to all three murders and save the Grand’ Terre from misfortune. Quite how he imagined that he would achieve this aim by such means remains a mystery. He then asked Prudhomme to write a statement to this effect for him to sign. Prudhomme refused, whereupon Gaston became increasingly flustered, begging him for advice as to what to say. Prudhomme pointed out that he could not possibly invent a story on Gaston’s behalf, but if he wished to make a confession, then Prudhomme would be prepared to write it down for him. Gaston, saying he was innocent, still asked Prudhomme to write that he was guilty so that he would be able to keep his farm. Again it is difficult to follow his logic.
During Gaston’s trial Gustave testified that shortly before he and the policemen went to have dinner, one of the policemen, possibly Sébeille, had said to him that either he or his father was guilty. If it were Gustave, he would get the guillotine; if it were his father, he would be sent to a nursing home. Shortly before Christmas the Lurs postman, Francis Perrin, had told Paul Maillet that Gustave had confided in him that were he to be charged with the murders he would be executed, but his father would only receive a prison sentence. Maillet found this assumption extremely foolish. Perhaps Gaston also had been presented with this alternative and, in his confusion, imagined that he could take the rap while persisting in accusing his son of the murders.
Prudhomme grew increasingly impatient with Gaston, whom he accused of haggling. Getting nowhere, he suggested that Gaston might now want to have a word with Sébeille, who was waiting outside in the corridor. Surprisingly, given his intense hostility toward the commissioner, he agreed. Sabatier, Guérino, and Bocca left. Sébeille entered with Inspector Ranchin. Gaston asked Ranchin to leave, and Sébeille agreed. Prudhomme remained in the room. Gaston’s attitude then changed completely. He was now relaxed and cooperative. The concierge again brought him some food, which he ate with a healthy appetite. He then dictated a statement, which Prudhomme typed. It reads as follows:
I am the author of the drama which took place during the night of 4/5 August 1952, in the course of which a family consisting of three English people—father, mother and a little girl—were killed. I am going to tell you how it all happened. At about eleven thirty on the evening of 4 August I left my house to have a look at what had happened to the landslide in one of my fields, which had been caused by excessive watering and which threatened to obstruct the railway line bordering it.
When I set out I changed my mind because when I brought my goats home that evening at about seven thirty I noticed those English people who had parked their car on the side of the road in order to camp there. I already knew these people by sight because I think it was the day before that I saw them camping below the watercourse, just past the curve in the road and near a path that leads to an olive grove. That day I had a conversation with the lady and the little girl. We talked about the weather. The girl listened, while the man was reading and did not speak to me. In the course of this conversation I learnt that they had come from Lurs or Ganagobie.
Getting back to Monday evening, 4 August, I ought to tell you that I went directly to the campsite by walking along my field along the side of the road. Before setting out I took a carbine in the hopes of killing a badger or some other beast. I took this carbine from one of the sheds. It was hidden between two planks, which are shelves on the right-hand side on entering the shed towards the rear. I think I took two or three cartridges, which were beside it.
I went as far as the mulberry tree, where I stayed watching for quite some time, perhaps about twenty minutes, while the lady undressed. She was wearing a short transparent chemise and a dark grey or blue dress. I went up to her. We exchanged a few words in a low voice, after which I touched her on several places on her body. She did not object. At this point the man, who was lying on a camp bed sort of behind the car, heard us and got up. He started to shout in his language. I did not understand and he lunged at me. We took hold of one another when I got my carbine, which I had left on the ground beside the woman’s bed. The man, who was very tall, tried to disarm me by grabbing the carbine by the barrel. I lost my head at this juncture and I pulled the trigger. The bullet went through his hand, forcing him to let go. The man ran away across the road and I fired two or three shots at him. He must have been hit behind or at the side. The woman was screaming during this time. I think I only fired one shot. She fell on the spot. Then I noticed the little girl, who got out of the car by the rear doors and was running towards the Durance. I fired one round in her direction, but I did not hit her because she was still running. I saw her hurtling down the slope on the other side of the bridge and I ran after her to catch her. When I got beside her I saw that she was on her knees. I hit her once with the butt. I was completely crazy and did not know what I was doing. I descended directly towards the Durance in the direction that the girl’s body was lying, where there is a gap that gives access to the river. I had blood on my hands. Having washed my hands, I took my weapon and threw it a few metres away to a spot where I knew the water was deep and which is wide open. I went along the path and got back to the farm having gone along the railway line. I sat down for a moment on my garden wall, and then I went back to bed. I got up at about four o’clock and took my goats to pasture on the Giropey side.
In answer to a question: I did not go back to the campsite that night, and I did not pick up any cartridges. I did not see Gustave when I left and afterwards I never said anything about what I had done that night. In addition, I never said anything to any member of my family.
In answer to a question: I have no idea whether Gustave went to the area afterward to see what had happened. I repeat once again that I am the perpetrator of this drama and that no one helped me. I sincerely regret what I did and I only fired at the man and the woman and hit the girl on the head with the rifle butt when I was utterly crazy. I completely lost control of myself when I saw the man leaping at me. I pulled the trigger out of fright. I stunned the girl so that she would not talk.10
There are many oddities in his statement. First, had his intent been to examine the landslide, he would not have walked along the side of the road to the campsite. Second, all other testimony indicated the shots were fired shortly after 1:00 a.m., so he obviously did not get up at 11:30 p.m. In a previous statement he also had said that he was awoken by a motorcycle at 11:45 p.m. Third, he could not have seen Anne undressing, because Gustave had testified that he had seen the Englishwoman and her daughter preparing to go to bed at about 8:45 p.m. Further, Lady Anne also did not possess clothes of that description. That Gaston said that he had left the carbine by her bedside at one point also suggests that she was already in bed. Fourth, since Jack Drummond was wearing shoes when he was found, he could not have been in bed at the time. Also, no bullet went through his hand. Fifth, Anne was hit by more than one round. Next, it was highly unlikely that Gaston had had much of a conversation with the Drummonds. The adults’ French was very poor and his was barely understandable. Seventh, it would have been impossible for Elizabeth to open the rear door from inside the car. And finally, the sexual motive for the crime is simply not credible. Prudhomme, with a nudge and a wink, had suggested a prurient motive to Gaston, who had eagerly seized upon this opportunity to boast of his virility.
(During the trial Sébeille would be taken to task for failing to address the inconsistencies, incongruities, and anomalies in Gaston’s confession. He gave the lame reply that he was frightened that if he had pressed Gaston, then he would have retracted his statement.)
Gaston then asked the commissioner to bring him 80,000 francs ($230) in cash and 200,000 francs ($575) in share certificates, which were in two tin boxes at the farm. He also asked for some wine and to be allowed to have his dog with him in prison. Having let loose a series of imprecations against his wife, then he announced that he felt as if he would be able to have a good night’s sleep.
Sébeille returned to the law courts at 9:30 a.m. on 15 November. Although Périès was already in his office, he went first to see Gaston, who appeared utterly exhausted. He stayed with him for three-quarters of an hour but astonishingly made no notes. All we know is that Gaston appeared distraught, burst into tears, and again confessed the crime.
At 10:15 a.m. the examining magistrate went to see Gaston rather than calling him to his office. Gaston was sitting in an armchair and gestured with his hand that Périès should sit beside him. Given that he was accused of an exceptionally brutal crime, it is remarkable that the police treated him extraordinarily gently throughout the proceedings. Gaston repeated that although he was not the murderer of the Drummond family, he was prepared to confirm the statement he had made the previous evening to save his grandchildren’s honor. He went on to say that his son Gustave was the assassin, but as he was the oldest member of the family, it was his duty to sacrifice himself on everyone’s behalf. After a frustrating quarter of an hour, Périès, having explained that he could make no use of such statements, left the room accompanied by the clerk of the court. Gaston shouted after them that if they did not note this down, “there would be a misfortune at the Grand’ Terre.” No explanation can be found for this strangely empty threat.
Sergeant Sabatier then told the crowd of journalists waiting in the courtyard in front of the law courts that Gaston Dominici had begun to confess the crime, but the version he gave was unsatisfactory. When pressed for details, he said that for the moment he had nothing to add.
Périès resumed his questioning at 11:15 a.m., intent on getting Gaston to drop the claim that he was sacrificing himself for the family’s honor. He was sullen and resentful, moaning about his misfortune. Now he claimed that he could not remember at what time he had left the house on that fateful night. He went on to say that he had talked to Lady Drummond and her daughter just before nightfall and that he had been tending his goats at the area known as Saint-Pons when they approached him. He said that Anne spoke very poor French, but the little girl was quite fluent. They talked about the beauty of the landscape, while the husband sat some distance away, reading a book. Some time later, after he had returned to the farm, he noticed that the English people had established a campsite on the turnout at the edge of his property.
Gaston went on to say that he had left the house shortly after a motorcycle with a sidecar had stopped outside the Grand’ Terre. He went to get the carbine, which was in the “garage” between two planks that formed shelves at the back of the building on the right-hand side. The magazine was on the carbine. Although he knew that it was fully loaded, he took a few extra rounds that were lying on the shelf nearby. He took the gun with him in the hope of seeing some badgers or rabbits. He had left the house with the intention of going to look at the landslide and then to do a little hunting. Contrary to this assertion, he said he approached the mulberry tree, near which the English were camping, by walking along his alfalfa field. The man was lying on a camp bed, which was up against the car. He appeared to be asleep. The woman was taking off her dress. He could not see the child but learned later that she was sleeping inside the car. He hid behind the mulberry tree and watched the woman undressing. She “had what it takes.” He went on to say, “Suddenly I felt that I wanted to fuck her. I went up to her. I put down the weapon just before I got level with the front of the car. The lady was not scared when she saw me. Immediately I put my hand on her cunt. She did not react. I did not hesitate. I got out my dick. The woman lay down on the ground and I started to fuck her.”11
Gaston said that they must have made a noise, because the husband got up shortly afterward and came up to them in anger. Gaston got up and went to get his gun. The man grabbed the gun by the barrel, which went off without him having pulled the trigger. He insisted that this first shot had been by accident. The bullet went through his adversary’s hand, whereupon he grabbed Gaston by the throat. Fearing that the man was getting the better of him, because he was much stronger, Gaston fired another round at point-blank range. Jack then ran away, going around the rear of the vehicle. Gaston ran after him and fired another round while he was crossing the road. He fell down “for good” on the other side of the road.
The woman then started to scream. Gaston went back to her and fired a shot in her direction. He could not remember whether he fired at her once or twice. At this moment the little girl got out of the car by the rear door. She cried a bit but not much. She ran away in the direction of the bridge. Gaston followed her, firing one round, but it missed. He fired again. Again he missed. At this point he realized that the magazine was empty.12 This he could not explain, because he thought it was full. He imagined that he must have lost some cartridges on the way. He also seems to have mislaid the two or three cartridges that he had put in his pocket when he had taken his carbine from the garage. Then he saw that the girl was crossing the bridge and hurtling down the slope toward the river. He asked himself how it was possible that he had been able to catch her. When he caught up with her, she was on her knees. She looked at him but said nothing. “I was plastered. I did not know what I was doing. I was mad. I maintain that the carbine broke with the first blow. The child collapsed immediately without even a moan.”13 He then went toward the Durance and threw his carbine into the river. He added that he had chosen a piece of high ground, a promontory about 22 yards from the place where he had hit the girl, from which to throw the rifle. Then he washed his bloodstained hands.
Gaston next retraced his steps. He thought that the little girl was dead because she did not move. He went to the campsite to see whether the parents were indeed dead. He covered up the woman’s body with a rug that was lying on the ground beside the car. He then took a camp bed and covered the man’s body. He did not rummage around in the car or in the stuff that was lying around all over the place.
Going back to the bridge over the railway, he turned right, without going to have another look at the little girl. He went along the railway line, crossed it, and returned to the farm by the path that led to the yard. He went back to bed at about 2:30 a.m. and got up again at 4:00 a.m. and left with his goats. He did not see Gustave when he went back to bed, nor when he left, but he did not go back to sleep and heard Gustave leaving the house on three occasions. He claimed not to have spoken to anyone about what had happened. He told neither Gustave nor Clovis what he had done.
When asked about the murder weapon, Gaston said that he kept it in the shed, on a shelf at the back on the right-hand side. He could not remember how the weapon came into his possession. All he knew was that they had owned it since some Americans had passed by. The early morning of 5 August was the first time that he had used the gun. He never made any repairs on the weapon, but he noticed that the barrel was attached to the handguard by means of a Duralumin collar.
His statement was read to him, and he signed it. He then said, “I hope that you understand. I have not got along with my wife for twenty years. I am too old to get divorced. I had here an opportunity to get out of this situation. I did not let it escape me.”14
Again, a number of inconsistencies, contradictions, and obvious lies in this statement would seriously weaken the case against Gaston. In part they were due to Gaston’s very poor French, which gave rise to a series of ambiguities and imprecisions—many of them deliberate—that the judicial police and the examining magistrate did not see fit to clarify. They claimed that they did not want to question him too much for fear that he might withdraw his confession. Faced with mounting pressure to secure a conviction, they preferred to go ahead with a weak case rather than prolong the investigation.
This statement about Gaston’s meeting with the mother and child differs in several ways from his earlier version. Previously he had said that Elizabeth had remained silent and that he and the girl’s mother had talked about the weather. He had earlier given the precise location of the encounter, but now he spoke of the general area. The only thing that was the same in both versions was that Sir Jack had been reading.
Gaston now claimed to have left the house just after the motorcycle with a sidecar had stopped at the farmhouse. He had previously stated that this was at 11:45 p.m. Were this true he must have been wandering around for an hour and a quarter before the shots were fired. The claim that he took the carbine along with him in the hope of doing some hunting is preposterous. No one would ever shoot rabbits with a .30 caliber gun. Furthermore, it was said that Gaston had not gone hunting since 1947 at the latest.15
One witness, Ode Arnaud, had spotted a motorcycle with a sidecar on the road to Manosque that night. He stated that the sidecar was on the left, suggesting that it might have been British. A man was driving; a woman was sitting in the sidecar. He was unable to see whether a child was also in the sidecar. Despite extensive investigations, no trace was found of this vehicle, but André Désirée, who ran a bicycle repair shop in Peyruis, stated that he had delivered a punctured motorcycle tire he had fixed to the Grand’ Terre at eleven thirty the night before that of the murders. He had taken it on his scooter and had dropped the repaired tire off in the courtyard; so it may well be that the Dominicis had used this incident as the basis of their story of the strangers on a motorcycle. In any event Gaston only claimed to have seen a man, not the motorcycle. Gustave, however, could not have seen anything unless he had gotten up to investigate. (Further, in Gustave’s defense the punctured tire on his motorcycle may explain why Yvette, although pregnant, had to ride her bicycle to Giropey to telephone the gendarmerie on 5 August 1952.)
The extremely crude language Gaston had used when describing his encounter with Lady Drummond was absolutely shocking at the time and still seems lubriciously prurient. No journalist dared print his statement verbatim, and nobody believed that a respectable English lady would willingly have sexual intercourse with a seventy-six-year-old peasant in the middle of the night while lying on gravel only a few feet away from her husband. Moreover, the autopsy revealed no sign of recent sexual activity, and Anne was fully clothed and wearing panties when her body was discovered.
Since Jack Drummond was wearing shoes, he almost certainly was not lying in bed fast asleep. The autopsy showed that he had an empty bladder, thus providing ample explanation for his shoes being unlaced. Gaston’s statement that he woke up “shortly afterward” is typically vague. It is not at all clear precisely what act was completed immediately before Jack awoke, although it is implied that it was after the conclusion of this fantasy copulation.
Drummond had not been shot through the hand, although there was a gash across his palm. Had a bullet passed through his hand, he would not have been able to grab Gaston by the neck. Even if the gun had gone off accidentally, it must have been cocked with the safety catch released. No one ever questioned Gaston on this important point.
Gaston claimed to have fired one or two shots at Lady Drummond, but she was hit by three rounds. His testimony about the number of cartridges is also contradictory. An M1 magazine holds fifteen rounds. Gaston claimed it was full, yet after firing six or seven rounds it was empty. How was it also that all the rounds in his pocket had suddenly disappeared? In addition, there is the question of what he did during that period of well over an hour before he went back to bed. Last, again it would have been impossible for Elizabeth to have climbed out of the back of the Hillman as the rear door did not open from the inside.
Having obtained this signed confession, Périès wanted to reconstruct the crime that afternoon, but he was told that there was a crowd of about two thousand onlookers at the Grand’ Terre. News of the confession had been broadcasted and it was a Sunday afternoon. He therefore realized that he would have to postpone the reenactment until the following day. In the meantime, he decided to confront Gaston with his sons Gustave and Clovis.
Clovis was led into the room, and his father’s statement was read to him. He said that he stuck to his original statement. When Commissioner Sébeille had shown him the gun, he recognized it at once as the one that was kept in the shed at the Grand’ Terre and that he had seen it two or three times. He had gone to the shed on 5 August and noticed that it was missing. He initially had taken this to mean that Gustave had committed the murders. He continued to believe so until sometime in the fall of 1952, while Gustave was in jail, and one evening after supper, when they were alone together in the kitchen, his father had said that he had shot the English. He added that on this occasion his father had “drunk more than usual.” Given Gaston’s reported phenomenal capacity for alcohol, it must have been a vast amount. Gaston did not deny this statement. He simply said that he could not remember the incident.
Clovis then repeated that his father had said, “I bumped off all three of them. If I had to do it again, I would do it.”16 Clovis had assumed that this reference to doing it “again” referred to his mother, with whom his father had just had yet another blazing row and who had gone to bed to escape his rage. Gaston muttered, “It’s possible that I said that, but I can’t remember.”
Clovis then added one odd detail to his statement. He did not think that his father had initially taken the M1 with him that night but had returned to the farm to fetch it after a confrontation with the Drummonds. This version certainly made more sense. It suggested that Gaston wanted to chase the Drummonds away.
Gustave was then brought in to confront his father. He said that he had heard his father’s footsteps at four o’clock in the morning and gotten up to ask him whether he had heard the shots. His father had replied in the affirmative, adding that he was responsible. At this point Gaston interjected, “Thank you very much, Master Gustave.”17 This snide remark set off a lengthy slanging match in dialect, after which Gustave continued his statement. He said that he had asked his father whether he had gone mad. Gaston replied that he had gotten up to see the landslide and to do a little hunting. He did not say how the quarrel with the Drummonds had started. He had simply said that after a discussion, the Englishman had approached him and that he had shot at him. Gustave then went to the spot where his father had said that the little girl was lying. He went next to the campsite, and when he went back to the farmhouse, he looked in the shed to see whether his father had used the American carbine. It was no longer there. That morning he did not notice whether there was a pair of his father’s trousers hanging in the yard. Nor did he notice whether his father’s trousers were bloodstained “at the time of these events.”18
This is the first time that the question of the trousers hanging out to dry is mentioned in the written records. The matter was never pursued until the entire case was investigated anew. Gaston said that he did not have to wash his trousers, because they were not bloodstained. He added that he could not remember if he had told Gustave that it was he who had fired the shots. It is curious that Gaston readily admitted to having blood on his hands but fiercely denied that he had any on his trousers. The examining magistrate, appearing not to have noticed this anomaly, asked no further questions about the matter.
Gustave went on to say that he had spoken to no one about this incident until a few days after he had been released from prison. He said Clovis had confided to him, when they were working together in the Saint-Pons wood, that their father had fired the shots. Clovis, who had already told Sébeille about the Saint-Pons incident on 13 November, affirmed that this was indeed the case and that he had broached the subject. It seems hard to believe that the two brothers had not spoken to one another about the crime for over four months, even though Gustave was the prime suspect. Gustave then stated that his father had confessed to the crime at four o’clock in the morning of 5 August.
The brothers thus leveled serious accusations against their father, but they offered the examining magistrate no hard piece of evidence that could be used to bolster his case. Loath to probe any deeper for fear that the entire case would collapse, Périès decided to call it a day.
Gaston had thus confessed to the crime on several occasions: to his sons Gustave and Clovis, to the policemen Guérino and Bocca, to Commissioners Sébeille and Prudhomme, and to Examining Magistrate Périès. On two occasions he had seized upon the suggestion of a motive. First, that it was an accident; second, a consequence of his thwarted sexual appetite. All of these confessions differed in several ways, but most were incongruously presented as a means of preserving the family’s honor, particularly that of his grandchildren.
During the afternoon, Commissioner Harzic, the head of the Ninth Mobile Brigade in Marseille and Sébeille’s superior, made a statement to the press. It contained a number of astonishing errors. First, he said that Gaston had confessed to the crime at seven o’clock in the morning, quoting him has having said, “Yes, I killed them. I acted alone.” The initial confession had been in the early evening and was not in the form Harzic had claimed. He then went on to say that Gaston had left the house to hunt badgers that had been attacking his chickens, but there is no record of him ever having made such a claim. Harzic next stated that Gaston carried the gun by the sling, even though he must have known that it did not have one. He further said that Gustave had watched Anne while she was washing.
There followed a somewhat garbled version of the murders. According to Harzic, Gustave had been awoken by the shots and was waiting for his father in the farmyard when he returned. Gaston, it was claimed, had then confessed all. Clovis had come to the Grand’ Terre in the morning and had been “let into the secret.” Apparently it was Yvette who had persuaded her husband to tell Clovis and to make sure that he corroborated the story. None of this information can be found in the police records.19
With astonishing disregard for the principle of presumption of innocence, the local press outdid itself in denouncing Gaston Dominici. Le Méridional’s headline read, “Father Dominici Is the Drummonds’ Assassin.” La Marseillaise announced, “Gaston Dominici Is the Lurs Assassin.” Le Provençal also confirmed that “Gaston Dominici is the Drummonds’ assassin.”
Given the inconsistencies between Gaston’s various versions of the crime, Périès decided to go ahead with the reconstruction of the crime before pressing charges. He had a powerful motive for such a postponement. At that time under French law, a person had no right to engage a lawyer until charges were laid. Périès knew that the prominent lawyer Émile Pollak and his associate Pierre Charrier were hovering in the wings, eager to become involved in this sensational case. That both were active members of the Communist Party was a further reason to keep them off the case as long as possible. He certainly did not want them to be in any way involved in the reconstruction, and all subsequent attempts by the defense to reenact the drama were flatly refused.
During the night of 15–16 November, the gendarmes closed the road leading past the Grand’ Terre. Journalists were permitted to witness the proceedings the morning of the sixteenth but were cordoned off by the gendarmerie on the other side of the road. The correspondent from The Times described this as “a conventional part of French police investigations, however strange to English eyes.”20 Somehow or other the Dominici family had been forewarned, because most of the family members, with the notable exception of Clovis, were ready and waiting in the farmhouse.
The prosecutors arrived with Gaston at nine o’clock. His appearance prompted shrieks of anguish from within the building, the chorus led by the redoubtable Augusta Caillat. The gendarmes’ cordon was singularly ineffective. There was already a large crowd of curious onlookers, and as Gaston descended from the police car, many shouted out, “Death!”21 He appeared to be unmoved by such hostility and waved cheerily to the press photographers.22
The proceedings began with a visit to the shed, where Gaston was asked to show where the carbine had been kept. Using his cane, he clearly pointed to the top shelf. Since the police photographer’s flash did not function properly, he repeated this gesture three times. The transcript, however, clearly states that he had shown it was kept on the lower shelf, as his two sons had stated. Gustave and Clovis were then asked the same question. The photographs clearly show them pointing to the lower shelf. This discrepancy between the photographic evidence and the written testimony was to prove very embarrassing to the prosecution when the case was reopened. Yvette pointed out that if it had been kept on the lower shelf, everyone would have been able to see it. Faced with this awkward fact, Clovis would change his testimony and claim that it had been kept on the upper shelf.
Gaston then walked toward the scene of the crime. It is not at all clear from various accounts of these events quite what happened during the enactment. Did he carry the gun in his right hand and his cane in the left, or did he take the gun in his left hand and hold his hat in the right to cover his face, leaving his cane behind? Or did he walk with his cane in the right hand and his hat on his head, while Sébeille walked beside him carrying the weapon?
Precisely what then happened is also opened to conjecture. According to the transcript Gaston took charge of the proceedings, voluntarily and unhesitatingly reenacting the murder. Some of the journalists, who watched from across the road, confirm this version of events, but others insist that he was cajoled, questioned, and forced to change his story. One even claimed that he looked like a marionette, manipulated by the gendarmes.23 Whatever the case, it seemed that Gaston more or less confirmed by his actions what he had said in the various confessions but with one important exception. In his confession to Périès, he had said that having fired the first shot, which wounded Jack in the hand, he had fired a second time virtually at point-blank range. Now he showed the second shot as having been fired at some distance and from behind as he had previously stated to Prudhomme. He only mimed having shot Anne once. Thus, during the reconstruction Gaston claimed to have fired only three shots, the number that Gustave and Yvette claimed to have heard, but it does not coincide with the coroners’ evidence.
The vexing issues of the pool of blood by the sump and the piece of flesh on the Hillman’s bumper were not addressed. Incredibly, no photographs had been taken of these valuable pieces of material evidence.
Using his cane to imitate the carbine, Gaston reloaded the gun after each imaginary shot, indicating that he did not know that the M1 was semiautomatic. He showed that he had fired from the shoulder, whereas the autopsy proved that the two shots on Jack had been fired from the hip.
A critical issue was to discover whether a man of Gaston’s advanced age who always walked with a cane could have caught up with Elizabeth as she ran away. One of the inspectors played the role of Elizabeth, and Gaston ran after him at an incredible speed for a man of seventy-seven. It is also extraordinary that he put such an effort into this sprint, and it served further to strengthen Périès’s conviction that he was guilty. But Gaston was a proud man, given to vaunting his strength, virility, and prowess. He was unable to resist the challenge. There was yet another motive. When he was halfway across the bridge, he scrambled up and onto the parapet, intent on throwing himself onto the railway lines. Here he showed considerably less agility, and Périès, who had been an enthusiastic rugby player in his youth, tackled him and thus frustrated his suicide attempt. The scene had an element of comedy in that Gaston and Périès both lost their hats in the chase. When they went back to get them, each took the other’s and put them on. In their confusion it took them a while to notice their mistake and make the exchange.
Gaston was initially reluctant to reenact killing Elizabeth. Twice he refused. Then Sébeille’s assistant, Inspector Girolami, knelt down in front of him while Gaston, brandishing his cane above his head, said: “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hit you!”24 Gaston had always reacted violently whenever Elizabeth’s name was mentioned, so this bizarre utterance was not untypical. Somewhat later when Sébeille told him that someone wanted to erect a monument at the spot where Elizabeth was killed, he said that even if they built a fence around it, the dogs would still shit on it.
Having mimed how he had killed Elizabeth, Gaston then went to the promontory where he had stood to throw the gun into the river. He went to the spot he had told Périès about the day before, not the one he had described in his confession to Commissioner Sébeille. He then pointed out the place where he had washed his hands, but he refused to walk down to the river. He now claimed that he went back to the campsite to cover the bodies before washing his hands, whereas in his statement to the commissioner he said that he had washed his hands first.
All those present were struck by the presence of Paul Maillet, who paced about inside the cordoned-off area, chain-smoking. With a beaming smile on his face, he kept repeating the phrase, “The old man wanted to get me, but I’ve got him!” This statement is strange, because nowhere in the records is there any mention of Gaston making an accusation against Paul Maillet. But that morning, when Gaston first noticed Maillet, he waved his cane at him and yelled, “Come here, punk! Fucking assassin! You held the carbine, eh, you bastard!”25 The ambiguity of this statement is less obvious when translated into English. The implication is that Paul Maillet held the weapon in his possession rather than that he physically held it in his hands when the murders were committed. Neither the judge nor the gendarmes saw fit to investigate this accusation, and Gaston never repeated it. It can therefore be assumed that Gaston’s outburst was simply directed at a man who had denounced his son and brought the Dominici family under suspicion. Similarly, Maillet’s glee at Gaston’s predicament was revenge for the shabby way in which he had treated his father.
The reconstruction of the crime having been completed, Examining Magistrate Périès and Commissioners Harzic, Sébeille, and Constant congratulated themselves in front of the journalists on a job well done. Such behavior, seemingly inappropriate in the extreme, was common practice in such cases at that time. What was very unusual was that Sébeille openly congratulated Paul Maillet with the words, “Well, Mr. Maillet, today you have witnessed your victory.”26 This remark is a clear indication not only of the degree of antagonism between Maillet and Gaston but also of the close relationship Maillet had with the commissioner.
The entire operation took a mere three-quarters of an hour. Such haste is possibly explained by the commissioners’ fears that Gaston might withdraw his confession, although the journalists who witnessed the scene said that he was cool, calm, and collected throughout, apart from his outburst against Paul Maillet. Gaston was now bundled into a police van and formally charged with murder on the way back to Digne. Périès told him that he should now get a lawyer, to which he replied, “I don’t want a lawyer—unless you are prepared to pay one for me.” This was a strange remark given that Émile Pollak and Pierre Charrier had been at his family’s side for the last fifteen months, ever since 6 August 1952. The following day Gaston had a defense team of four lawyers, but it is uncertain who selected them.27 None were provided by the court. It also remains a mystery how the Dominicis managed to pay for Gaston’s defense.
An angry crowd waited outside the prison in Digne for Gaston’s return. As he was led back to his cell, there were cries of “death!” Lucien Grimaud in La Marseillaise abandoned his previous support for the Dominicis to give an absurdly bombastic expression of the widespread revulsion toward Gaston Dominici:
Like one of the wild animals that he hunted down and slaughtered in the Lurs mountains, the old poacher, this ruffian from the banks of the Durance, has spat his venom, shown his fangs and once again spread evil. The confession of his atrocious crime aroused horror among those whose hopes for so many months were dashed by his threats and sarcasm. He sought to appear even more gruesome as he sank ever deeper into ignominy. As of yesterday the name of Gaston Dominici has joined those of the most odious in criminal history.28
Gaston was now an inculpé, which under French law meant a great deal more than simply the “accused.” There was an assumption of guilt, such that henceforth he was referred to as “the assassin” in the press. Whereas the local press had already jumped the gun, the Parisian papers now joined in. Le Figaro, France’s leading conservative newspaper, called him “the assassin, or more exactly the criminal, because it is not yet certain that premeditation was involved, in the case of old Gaston Dominici, an almost octogenarian horror.”29 It also called Gaston a “brute,” a “savage,” “an old bandit,” “senile,” a “vicious clodhopper,” the “ogre of Lurs,” a “megalomaniac,” a “monstrous old man,” “an old goat stinking of grease and pastis,” “repulsively boastful,” and “sadistic.”30 Le Parisien Libéré announced that the “Lurs Affair” had been solved, the “odious assassin” discovered.31 Gaston Dominici was now painted as an “abominable brute”; a “sinister old man”; a “ferociously brutal, solitary and choleric poacher”; a “horrible and incomprehensible man out of a nightmare”; the “Lurs Killer”; the “tattooed killer”; a man “with his penis in one hand and a machinegun in the other”; and the “patriarch-assassin.”32
The reaction to charges being laid against Gaston in the British press was quite different. British libel laws are severe. The accused is never described as guilty until judgment has been reached. The British press thus merely reports on the trial. Confessions made by the accused are never published.
Since this investigation was conducted in a foreign country, the British press had given it far greater coverage than would have been the case had it been done in Britain, but it never hinted that Gaston might have been the culprit. The differences between French and British law were often the cause of some confusion, particularly because the position of examining magistrate and the practice of having the accused reconstructing crimes do not exist in British law. The most that was said was an article in the Daily Express congratulating Commissioner Sébeille on the successful conclusion of a lengthy investigation.
The British press had been loud in its denunciations of French police methods over the last fifteen months, but now Sébeille proudly announced that he had silenced all such criticisms by the triumph of his “applied psychology” method. The British with their empirical bent remained unconvinced. The case rested on the denunciations of two of Gaston’s sons, plus certain circumstantial evidence. Where, they asked, were the hard facts that could lead to a conviction? There were still a number of unanswered questions. Did Gaston act alone? Would he have needed an accomplice? Was he sacrificing himself for another? Was it really possible accurately to reconstruct the triple crime? What motive could be behind this appalling massacre?
With Gaston Dominici formally charged, Sébeille became a national hero. Although the case was now sub judice under French law, there were no restraints on the public reporting of the investigation, so Sébeille continued to talk openly to the press. Minister of the Interior Léon Martinaud-Deplat was presiding over a dinner in Marseille when he was given the news. Rising to his feet, he announced that Gaston had been charged and proposed that Sébeille should be promoted and awarded the Légion d’honneur. Robert Hirsch, director general of national security, invited Harzic, Sébeille, Constant, and the rest of the Ninth Mobile Brigade of the judicial police in Marseille to dinner at the resplendent Parisian restaurant Pavillon Ledoyen. The heads of the judicial police, the gendarmerie, and the Office of Territorial Surveillance were in attendance. Praise was heaped upon Sébeille. The director of the judicial police asked for his autograph on the menu and told him to take a holiday. A promotion seemed imminent. Marcel Massot, a deputy from the Basses-Alpes, also called for a Légion d’honneur.
Sébeille received some five thousand congratulatory letters, with the post office offering to pay for any that were insufficiently stamped. A Swiss woman sent him 100,000 francs for his holiday expenses. In Lurs he was pampered, with the peasants offering him wine, the women kissing him. He was feted as the man who had delivered them from a nightmare. The News Chronicle seconded these remarks by describing Sébeille as a “43-year old crack detective.”33 The commissioner basked in this adulation, but he still had nagging doubts about the motive behind this brutal and senseless crime. It seemed to be a murder done in a moment of blind rage, but would this explanation stand up in court?