On October 16, 1984, little Grégory, 4, disappeared in front of his parents’ home around 5 p.m. His small body, tied up, his face masked under his hat was found on the banks of the river in Doles-sur-Vologne. In this affair, where insulting and threatening brothers and shells collide, there are two branches of the same family. First there are the Villemin, Jean-Marie and Christine, Grégory’s parents. Jean-Marie’s mother, Monique, was born Jacob. She had 12 brothers and sisters. It is this branch marked by death violence that makes many of their descendants say that the Jacob are victims of a curse. One of them even says that “the Jacobs are a family of misfortune”.
It all starts with Grégory, himself a descendant Jacob, whose monstrous assassination still shakes France, almost 41 years later, seems to open the way to a black series. Without being able to be exhaustive not having been able to find a trace of all the members, Paris Match is able to draw up this terrible list.
Bernard Laroche. Charged with the assassination of Grégory on November 5, 1984, Bernard Laroche, son of Thérèse Jacob, wife Laroche and Sister of Monique, was finally released on February 5, 1985 after the retraction of Muriel Bolle. The teenager first declared in police custody that Bernard Laroche had come to get her by car at the end of the school on the day before going to “take the little one” in front of the Villemin. Fou with pain, Jean-Marie Villemin murdered his own cousin on March 29, 1985.
Cyril Jacob. He is the son Jean-Paul Jacob, nephew of Marcel Jacob. On April 12, 2020, in the middle of a divorce, terrified at the idea of losing everything, he ended his days by strangling at only 42 years. He was the father of 3 children.
Monique Villemin, née Jacob. Only a few days after her little nephew, the grandmother of Petit Grégory, was swept away by the first Covid wave on April 19, 2020.
René Jacob. More recently, on February 21, 2024, it was a key figure in the case who died of old age … the same day as his son. René Jacob, 91, brother of Marcel Jacob and Monique Villemin, has indeed brought, almost without his knowledge, one of the “serious and concordant” elements to Dominique Brault, president of the investigation chamber of the Dijon Court of Appeal, who led him to order on June 18 the summons of Jacqueline Jacob, wife of Marcel criminals in the murder of Grégory. During a program broadcast on TF1 on October 4, 2021, journalists had listened to a recording of the crow to René. The old man then exclaimed: “But it’s the Jacqueline that!” Before trying to recover. Questioned by the judge later, René Jacob said “Yes, I thought I recognized the voice of Jacqueline Jacob, the wife of my brother Marcel. It was his laughter that I especially recognized. »»
René Jacob during an interview in 2020. At the time, he defended his brother Marcel and his sister-in-law Jacqueline
© Sophie Noachovitch
Gilbert Jacob. René’s son, Gilbert, had a marginal life. He was very willy -nilly. In February 2024, he hosted a homeless friend at home. It was during a blurring that the latter would have strangled to death Gilbert, 61. He made his last breath around 5 p.m. on February 21, 2024, just hours after his father.
And then there are the consequences of the Grégory Villemin case. “It broke the whole family,” said a cousin – they are nearly a hundred – from the 13 brothers and sisters Jacob. “Since the death of the little one, everyone has been wary of the other. We never dare to ask questions because we wonder if we chat with the right or the bad. Same feeling in a cousin, which does not frequent the previous one. “We are too numerous, we only see ourselves in burials, not even for weddings,” she says. Perhaps our parents have put forward hypotheses on whom could be the crow, but to us, they said nothing to us. »»
Among the Jacob, only two brothers remain, Albert and Marcel. Marcel, the last of this great siblings is also one of those who have been in the eye of justice since 2017, alongside his wife. It is she who concentrates the suspicions of Dominique Brault, president of the investigation chamber of the Dijon Court of Appeal.
