Christophe Hondelatte returns Wednesday on the disappearance of Pierre Quéméneur, in 1923. His friend Guillaume Seznec is declared guilty in 1924. He always denied being the author of this disappearance. A fight pursued by his family after his death.
HONDELATTE RACONTE
Did Guillaume Seznec kill his friend Pierre Quéméneur? The question haunts French criminal history for nearly 100 years now. Condemned in 1924, Guillaume Seznec has always denied being the cause of the disappearance of the general counsel of Finistère at the time, Pierre Quéméneur, whose body was never found. When Guillaume Seznec died in 1954, the whole family mobilized to rehabilitate their loved one. In vain, until today, as tells Christophe Hondelatte Wednesday on Europe 1.
The last to have seen him alive. On the morning of May 24, 1923, Guillaume Seznec and Pierre Quéméneur depart from Brittany to Paris, aboard a Cadillac. They have an appointment with someone in the capital to sell used cars. For the future? Only exists the version of Guillaume Seznec, last to have seen it alive. He explains that the Cadillac has chained breakdowns and punctures all along the road. Excited, Pierre Quéméneur would have asked his companion to drop him at Houdan station, to finish the journey by train. Guillaume Seznec would have continued the road alone. But he too, discouraged by repeated failures, would have turned around and decided to return to Morlaix. City where he will be seen two days later, May 28.
A strange telegram. After three weeks without news from Pierre Quéméneur, the family of the disappeared complains. At the same time, a telegram sent from Le Havre, arrives: "Will not return to Landerneau in a few days all goes for the better - Quéméneur". What reassure loved ones? Not in the least because Pierre Quéméneur used to sign "Pierre" when he addressed his family. Worse, in Le Havre, we find his suitcase, stained with sand and blood, with a promise of sale inside, for the mansion of Plourivo in the Côtes-du-Nord, at a very advantageous price. The beneficiary is ... Guillaume Seznec. For the police, it's a good move, especially since Guillaume Seznec is the last to have seen Pierre Quéméneur alive. He is arrested and becomes the main suspect.
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A defense undermined. Twelve days. This is the period that will last the investigation. The defense of Guillaume Seznec is undermined by several troubling elements. The authorities inquired about the trains from Houdan and towards Paris, the evening when Guillaume Seznec reportedly deposed Pierre Quéméneur. Problem, there was no more at that time. The police also wonder about the turn of Guillaume Seznec. Houdan is 46 kilometers from Paris, Morlaix more than 500: why turn around when it was so close to the capital. Moreover, in the white Cadillac, impossible to get hold of the jack, a 15-kilo tool, which could well have served as a weapon of crime according to the authorities. In Guillaume Seznec's house, the gendarmes also found a typewriter, bought on June 13 in Le Havre, the city from which the fake telegram went. For the police, Seznec is the author of the false message and the promise of sale.
Guillaume Seznec will not do anything to fix this situation. Incarcerated, he wrote to his wife with a paper hidden in a basket of dirty clothes. Paper that will be intercepted. He wants his wife to make an alibi with two people. "I defend myself as much as I can," he says to the judge who tells him to explain. The suspect denies everything in block. He is not at the origin of the disappearance of Pierre Quéméneur.
23 years of prison. The trial is held from October 24 to November 4, 1924 in Quimper. Guillaume Seznec is found guilty of the murder of Pierre Quéméneur and forgery of writing. The premeditation is not retained, thus avoiding the guillotine to drive him to the galleys. In 1947, at the end of his sentence, he was released. He moved to Paris to live with one of his daughters, where he was going to establish a special relationship with one of his grandchildren, Denis Seznec.
Guillaume Seznec will never be able to fight the fight of his rehabilitation. He died in a car accident in February 1954. But if he can no longer cancel his conviction, his family, Denis Seznec in mind, will do it for him. Between 1954 and today, fourteen revision requests will be asked. One in 2001, by the Garde des Sceaux herself, Marylise Lebranchu. All were rejected.
At the whim of the twists. The Seznec affair will undergo an unexpected rebound in February 2015. Maître Denis Langlois, lawyer who represented the Seznec family during the first revision requests, publishes a book: To end the Seznec affair . Inside, an unpublished document: the transcript of a recording of a testimony of the son of Guillaume Seznec, Guy. It tells a scene occurred Sunday, May 27, 1923: his mother would have rejected the advances of Pierre Quéméneur, accidentally killing him in the kitchen of the family home. "I saw Quemeneur on the floor and my mother standing in front of him ... (...) I think my mother had to defend herself and hit him in the head," transcribes Denis Langlois. Guillaume Seznec would then have endorsed the murder and drafted the false promise of sale to recover a bribe previously paid to Quéméneur. Guy Seznec even gives the location of the body. The authorities will conduct searches, in vain, falling only on bones of beef.
In December 2018, a new twist is shaking up this historic affair. A 90-year-old Norman woman claims that her father, Georges Morand, secretly buried a corpse in the village of Saint-Lubin-de-la-Haye at the request of one of his friends, Raymond Lainé. The latter was trying to hide the body of someone he killed in Houdan. A body, but no name. If Cécilia Morand makes the connection with the Seznec affair, the justice considers that this rapprochement is made a posteriori, without obvious evidence.
96 years after the disappearance of Pierre Quéméneur, the Seznec affair continues to animate the news. Until the final denouement soon?