Émile Louis (born January 21, 1934 in Pontigny, Bourgogne)
Is a retired French bus driver and prime suspect in the disappearance of seven young women in the département of Yonne, Burgundy, in the late 1970s. In 2000 Louis confessed to their murders; he retracted this confession one month later.
Louis is currently (since March 2004) serving a 20-year jail sentence for the rape and torture of his last wife and of her daughter. He was also twice convicted of sexual attacks on minors: once in 1983 for which he was sentenced to four years in prison, and again in 1989 with a five-year jail term.
Disappearances
Louis is a prime suspect in the disappearances in the Yonne Département of seven young women with mild mental deficiencies between 1975 and 1980. The disappearances initially did not attract much attention, as the girls had no close relatives and lived in homes for the handicapped; it was assumed that they had simply run away. Louis confessed to murdering the seven girls in 2000, then promptly retracted his statement. However, his statement led police to find the remains of two of the victims. Louis allegedly kidnapped the girls while driving a bus meant to transport them.
One recurring question is how the justice system could have ignored this string of disappearances for so long, even though suspicions had grown and some official reports indicated probable foul play. In particular, gendarme Christian Jambert submitted a report in 1984 designating Louis as a prime suspect. On August 4, 1997, Jambert was found dead and judicial authorities found the cause to be suicide. However, an examination of his skull on March 31, 2004, indicated that two bullets had entered the brain, and both should have instantly been fatal.
In 1992, Pierre Charrier, the head of the Yonne APAJH association managing the home for handicapped young people where the missing girls had been staying, was sentenced to six years in prison for raping a 23-year-old handicapped woman. Nine years before, Nicole Charrier, his spouse, had testified in favor of Louis. In 2001, Nicole Charrier was removed from her management position at APAJH.
The lack of reaction on the part of judicial authorities has led to suspicions that the blocking of enquiries was not out of negligence or incompetency, but because of the possible involvement of locally well-connected people in a network providing sadistic prostitution services.
One issue in the legal treatment of Louis actions is prescription (the statute of limitations). Even if Louis admitted to crimes committed in the late 1970s, it might be impossible to prosecute him. The Court of Cassation ruled that certain acts that before would not have been considered to be interrupting prescription, but in fact interrupted prescription.
Louis' trial by the Yonne assize court for the seven murders started on November 3, 2004. On November 10, the court visited the location where the bodies of two victims, Madeleine Dejust and Jacqueline Weis, were exhumed after Louis confessed their location to the Gendarmerie. Louis has retracted his confession and maintains his innocence.
List of alleged victims
- Madeleine Dejust
- Chantal Gras
- Bernadette Lemoine
- Christine Marlot
- Martine Renault
- Jacqueline Weiss
- Françoise Lemoine
Emile Louis is accused of murdering the girls - many of whom were mentally disabled and in local council care in northern Burgundy - over 30 years.
He confessed to some of the murders four years ago, although he has since retracted the confession.
Only two of the girls' bodies have so far been found.
Over three decades, some 30 young women went missing while in the care of the social services in the Yonne region.
Many victims' families say they will be in court to see the severe failings of the French authorities laid bare.
They include the father of a British student, Joanna Parrish, from Gloucestershire, whose murder near the city of Auxerre in 1990 was never solved.
The BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris says many of the victims had severe learning difficulties, yet the local authorities simply recorded them as runaways.
The French police showed little interest, our correspondent says.
'Cover-up'
Only one local gendarme pursued evidence against a bus driver, Emile Louis, who knew many of the girls personally.
But the enquiries were halted and a damning report was lost until 1996.
The gendarme was then found shot dead - in what was recorded as suicide.
The victims' families started to suspect a cover-up and a new investigation showed that dozens of files relating to the cases had disappeared from a court house.
Rumours emerged of a high-level sex ring and four years ago Mr Louis confessed to several of the murders, before retracting his confession.
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