Grégory Villemin case: Former French judge found dead

A former judge who played a leading part in one of 
France's biggest murder inquiries has been found dead at home with a plastic bag over his head.

Police are investigating Jean-Michel Lambert's death 
but no signs of a struggle have been reported.

He was in his first job when given the task of investigating 
the 1984 murder of four-year-old Grégory Villemin.

Mr Lambert had admitted making mistakes and the 
case was reopened last month when new evidence came 
to light.

The judge was 32 when he was given the role of 
investigating a case that was to be a cause celebre for decades to come.

What happened to Grégory Villemin?

Grégory Villemin's body was found with his hands 
and feet bound in the Vologne river in the north-east of
 France on 16 October 1984.

His murder became a tale of family rivalries, poison-pen letters and false leads, and his killer has never been found.

A cousin of the boy's father, Bernard Laroche, was soon arrested when his sister-in-law, Muriel Bolle, testified 
against him. Laroche was released the next year when she retracted her  statement, but he was shot dead by the boy's father weeks later.

The father went to jail for Laroche's murder and within 
months Judge Lambert had turned the inquiry towards the boy's mother, Christine Villemin. She was accused of carrying out his murder in 1985 but eventually cleared in 1993.

By 1987 Judge Lambert had been replaced by another 
judge, Maurice Simon, whose devastating criticism of his predecessor's work emerged on Wednesday.

According to French news channel BFMTV, Judge Simon wrote at the time in his personal notebooks of Mr Lambert's "intellectual disorder".

"I am in the midst of a miscarriage of justice in all its 
horror," he wrote of the accusations made against Grégory Villemin's mother.

Mr Lambert had himself admitted he was unprepared
 for the enormous interest in the case at the time, and had complained of the poor judicial support he had been given.

"I didn't devote the full attention I should have given to the case from the outset," he conceded.

Why has the case been reopened?

Since the collapse of the case, police have been able to
 take advantage of advances in DNA technology to shed further light on the murder.

Last month, three members of the murdered boy's father's family were held by police on suspicion of being 
accomplices. The boy's great-uncle Marcel Jacob and 
his wife Jacqueline were placed under formal investigation 
for kidnapping resulting in death. They were later released from custody.

Then came the arrest of Muriel Bolle amid similar 
allegations.

Fifteen at the time of the murder, it was her testimony 
that led to the arrest of her brother-in-law Bernard
 Laroche in 1984. She retracted the evidence but 
prosecutors believe she was forced to do so by relatives.

Declaring her innocence she went on hunger strike 
and ended it on Tuesday, the same day the former judge
 was found dead.