The Notary and the Miner's Daughter

For many years, the only noteworthy fact about the town of Bruay-en-Artois in northern France was the amount of coal extracted from its numerous mines. Most of the coal has long since disappeared, but Bruay is a name that gets instant recognition throughout France these days. The town is the scene of a bizarre murder case that has aroused bitter class hatred and brought under scrutiny the creaky machinery of French jurisprudence.

L'affaire Bruay began one early afternoon in April 1972 when a group of teen-agers kicking a soccer ball around an empty lot discovered the nude, mutilated body of Brigitte Dewevre, a 16-year-old schoolgirl whose father is a miner. The investigation began routinely enough, with police looking for a "tall, strongly built man wearing a turtle neck" who had been seen with the girl the day before she died. But then one witness claimed that she had seen a wealthy Bruay notary (in France, a kind of real-estate lawyer) named Pierre Leroy parking his car near the empty lot at approximately the time police believe Brigitte was murdered.

"Where were you between 7:45 and 8:30 on the night of April 5?" demanded Investigating Magistrate Henri Pascal more than a week later. Like many other townspeople who were questioned after the murder, Leroy could not remember. In fact, his testimony was waffling and contradictory. Acting on his "strong personal conviction," Pascal promptly jailed Leroy on a murder charge.

The people of Bruay were quite happy to have Leroy singled out as the assassin, since he had several strikes against him. He was a wealthy bourgeois in a poor socialist town. He was a bachelor of 37, and there were whispered rumors that he frequented prostitutes in Lille and was having an affair with a married woman. Worst of all, he was the legal representative of local coal bosses who had closed down many of the mines and thrown hundreds of Bruay men out of work.

Leroy's fate was sealed, it seemed, when a Bruay youth named Jean-Pierre, who was with the group that had originally discovered Brigitte's body, testified that he had seen a bald, corpulent man behind the wheel of a white Citroen near the empty lot at the hour of the crime. When it turned out that Leroy, who is partially bald and stocky, owned a white Peugeot, Jean-Pierre decided that the Citroen really was a Peugeot after all.

Despite the less than solid evidence and Leroy's protestations of innocence, Judge Pascal refused to release the notary on bail. Ultra-leftists subsequently formed an action committee to support Pascal's tough stand, contending that the case represented "the people's struggle against the bourgeoisie." As the trial became political, it rapidly outgrew Bruay. Pro-and anti-Leroy rallies were held in many cities of northern France. Even Jean-Paul Sartre got into the act. An article in his far-left newspaper, La Cause du Peuple, quoted Bruay miners, who demanded: "Give [Leroy] to us and we'll cut him into pieces with a razor. His balls should be cut off." Leroy's lawyers eventually took the case to a higher court, which ordered his release from jail because of insufficient evidence. In an unprecedented action, Pascal was also removed from the case by the French Supreme Court of Appeal for bias, and a new judge was appointed.

Noisy leftist protests followed. Three Bruay citizens, including Jean-Pierre, staged a three-day hunger strike. But for a growing number of Frenchmen, the Bruay affair was beginning to look like a left-wing version of the Dreyfus case. Was Leroy being railroaded, they asked, because of his social position?

Last month critics of the case had their suspicions justified. While being questioned by police in a new round of interrogation about the murder, Jean-Pierre suddenly confessed to the murder. When the police refused to accept the confession, he took them to his brother's apartment, where they found a bloody ax and the girl's glasses. The case should have ended there. It has not. Judge Pascal and most of the townspeople are still convinced of Leroy's guilt. Although out of prison, the hapless notary is still formally charged with murder. The charge will stick until the case is finally disposed of by the courts--and that may well take the better part of a year.

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