Patrice Alègre
Patrice Alègre (born 20 June 1968) is a French serial killer and sex offender. In 2002 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of five and the rape of six women that took place between 1989 and 1997. In the aftermath of Alègre's capture the police reopened several unsolved murder cases with possible links to him. During the ensuing investigation, Alègre and several members of the red light community claimed to have been part of a sex trafficking ring involving prominent members of society. The incident has been referred to in the French media as the Alègre case (French: L'affaire Alègre). Early lifePatrice Alègre was born in Toulouse to a police officer and a teenage hairdresser. His father was described as violent and his mother often cheated on her husband, sometimes in front of Alègre.[1] Alègre grew up in Saint-Geniès-Bellevue and was expelled from three secondary schools before he settled on the field of general mechanics. He lived with his grandmother for 14 years in the Izards district of Toulouse. While he lived with her, he dropped out of school after the fourth grade and turned to delinquency, theft, and drug trafficking. He eventually became homeless at the age of 13. He would later tell his psychiatrists that he had been sexually abused.[2] Alègre committed his first sexual assault at age 16.[3] In early 1988, Alègre met Cécile Chambert, with whom he had a daughter the next year.[4] CrimesDespite the relative stability of his relationship, Alègre gradually became more immersed in criminal activity. Alègre found his victims in the station's district while he was employed as a barman in the police station cafeteria and then at the Gare de Toulouse-Matabiau's buffet restaurant.[5] When women rejected his advances, he would rape and strangle them.[6][7] He killed his first victim, Valérie Tariote, a co-worker, on 21 February 1989.[8] On 16 February 1995, after a dispute where Alègre turned violent, Chambert ended her relationship with him and moved away with their daughter. Alègre moved in with his mistress, the manager of a nightclub where he was hired as a bouncer. He was fired from the nightclub after starting fights that scared away customers.[9] In February 1997, a 21-year-old Emillie Espès managed to flee after being raped by Alègre. Espès, who was the only surviving victim of Alègre, committed suicide in 2006. In the June of the same year, Alègre met Mireille Normand, a 35-year-old woman living alone in a chalet in Verdun. Calling himself Franck, he offered his services as a handyman in exchange for lodging. On 19 June, he raped and strangled her. Her body was found buried in her garden three weeks later. Alègre vacationed in Spain, Germany, and Belgium, before returning to Paris where he lodged with Isabelle Chicherie, an SNCF employee. He raped and strangled her, and burned her body on 4 September 1997. Alègre became a suspect in the murders when some of Chicherie's jewelry was found in his possession. The gendarmes wiretapped the phones of Alègre's relatives and convinced one of his friends to cooperate with the investigators. The friend then asked Alègre to meet him at a drop-off point in Châtenay-Malabry, where the police arrested him on 5 September 1997. Alleged links to a sex trafficking networkBackground and police findingsIn 1999, Alègre alluded to investigators that he had been present during the unsolved murder of the 28-year-old French-Canadian prostitute Line Galbardi.[10] Galbardi had been found murdered at the Hôtel de l'Europe in January 1992, where an unidentified local magistrate was also reported as being present at the crime scene.[11] In June 2000 a special investigative unit, Homicide 31, was established to look into cold murder cases that Alègre may have been responsible for.[10] Homicide 31 discovered patterns typical for Alègre's modus operandi in the murder of Josette Poiroux, who was stabbed to death and burned at her studio in Toulouse in 1992. Another murder that showed similarity to Alègre's crimes was that of Josette Legoy, a prostitute strangled in her apartment on 4 December 1987. Alègre would be indicted for both murders in May 2002. Furthermore, he was accused of murdering Line Galbardi and Patricia Ballejos in 1992, as well as raping a prostitute in 1997.[10] Overall, Homicide 31 looked into 191 unsolved murders in the region that had occurred between 1986 and 1997. In addition, the unit reopened autopsy files classified as suicides in the Haute-Garonne and five other departments. The police opened a new line of investigation that involved searching for prostitutes that had affiliated with Alègre in the 90s, who had worked as a pimp at the time. This led the police to discover two former prostitutes, Florence "Fanny" Khelifi and Christèle "Patricia" Bourre, who had both worked for Alègre previously. The two claimed that Alègre had acted as a henchman in a sex trafficking ring, and that local police had helped Alègre cover up some of his crimes. Notable members of the ring allegedly included former Toulouse mayor Dominique Baudis as well as former Toulouse deputy prosecutor Marc Bourragué.[10] Witness testimoniesBourre claimed to have witnessed Alègre kill several women, including Line Galbardi in 1992, while working as a madame for him in the early 90s. Bourre allegedly helped Alègre control other women within the sex trafficking ring while Alègre forwarded them to the "dungeon", a small club where extreme sadomasochistic orgies took place. Some of these sessions allegedly "turned badly" and people died.[10] Bourre claimed to have become acquainted with Marc Bourragué through Alègre in the 90s. She claimed to have been raped by Bourragué during an S&M party, and she later named Baudis as a participant.[10] Bourre claimed that Baudis took part in at least one S&M soirée. She said that on the evening of her 20th birthday, Alègre, Baudis, and another pimp named Lakhdar Messaoudène raped her.[10] Bourre also described the murder of a 16-year-old prostitute killed by Alègre and raped at Messaoudène's order because she was not "enough". In December 1991, the girl was reportedly taken to Lake Noah to be "trained" by Alègre. Bourre and Line Galbardi were present. However, the 16-year-old resisted and was subsequently killed. Galbardi allegedly wanted to inform the police about the murder and was killed by Alègre as a result.[10] After witnessing Galbardi's murder, Bourre went into hiding before being tracked down by gendarmes of Homicide 31.[12] Khelifi claimed to have been forced into prostitution by Alègre at age 17, at a time when Alègre was working in the police station canteen.[12] Khelifi claimed to also have witnessed the murder of Line Galbardi in January 1992 at the Hôtel de l'Europe. She alleged that Messaoudène forced all the other girls to witness the torture of Galbardi while Alègre raped, beat and strangled her. Khelifi proceeded to claim that she was abused by members of Toulouse's justice department and pressured by the police to keep quiet.[10] She had kept quiet about Alègre's involvement until she was tracked down by Homicide 31.[12] Khelifi was then put into contact with Bourre, and they spoke regularly for months. Psychologist Alain Pénin stated that Khelifi's claims were credible, with no hints of fabrication or dramatization.[10] A prostitute named Pierre-Olivier "Djamel" Puis supported Khelifi and Bourre's accounts, saying that S&M evenings had been organized by Alègre and others. He said that on some occasions people had died. Puis claimed that Claude Martinez, a transvestite who was murdered by Alègre in 1992, filmed the people attending the events. In 2003, Puis stated that a ten-year-old girl named Marion Wagon, who had been reported missing in 1996, had also been present at one of those evenings.[10] InvestigationOn 15 April 2003, the public prosecutor of Toulouse, Michel Bréard, opened a judicial investigation into "pimping in an organized gang, aggravated rape, and complicity, acts of torture and barbarism" against "Patrice Alègre and all others". Judge Thierry Perriquet was assigned to the case. Attorney general Jean Volff failed to notify the chancellery of the investigation's opening, which led to him being removed from his position. Volff was later implicated to have taken part in the S&M evenings by the witnesses.[10] Marc Bourragué was accused by the witnesses of being a part of the sex trafficking network. According to police reports, a magistrate was present at the scene of Galbardi's murder in 1992 even before the arrival of the police, with several officers claiming that the magistrate in question was Bourragué.[10][13] Bourragué had initially denied any links to Alègre, even though he had acted as deputy prosecutor in the case of Edith Schleichardt in 1990, in whose death Alègre was a suspect.[10] Bourragué also claimed to have never met Khelifi, although a restauranter who had formerly employed her claimed to have seen the two together.[10] Bourragué later admitted to having had an aperitif at Alègre's home in 1991 or 1992 but denied all other accusations, as well as being present at the scene of Galbardi's death.[10][13][14] On 18 May, Dominique Baudis stated that an ex-prostitute had accused him of being an accomplice of Alègre. He denied the claims and said that they were false accusations brought forward by "the pornography lobby", which had engaged in a smear campaign against him after he had recommended a ban on pornographic films on television.[10][15] André Mayrac, the owner of several libertine clubs, requested to be heard by the courts, saying that he possessed photos of the infamous "dungeon" where the alleged crimes took place. However, the photos were found not to have a link to the case.[10] Journalist Karl Zéro interviewed Khelifi in June 2003, whereupon Khelifi claimed to have witnessed children hanging from hooks inside of a torture chamber. Though Zéro claimed that Khelifi hadn't been paid for the interview, it turned out later that she received a car valued at roughly 10,000 Euros and that Zéro was working on a book written with Khelifi. Zéro had also received a letter from Alègre, which he read on live on air, where Alègre confirmed to have killed prostitute Claude Martinez on the orders of Baudis.[10][16] Sentences and dismissal of chargesOn 21 February 2002, the Assize Court of Haute-Garonne sentenced Alègre to life imprisonment for the five murders he committed between 1989 and 1997, with a probation period of twenty-two-years. On 27 May 2003, Puis was indicted for making false accusations and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, he retracted the statements he had made and attempted suicide. However, he later insisted that everything he initially told investigators was true. On 20 September 2003, Puis was found dead in a psychiatric clinic in Toulouse.[17] His death was ruled a suicide by drug overdose.[10] Bourre was arrested on 20 June 2003 for "complicity in false testimonies" after the court found that she had manipulated Puis into making false statements. After Bourre's arrest, Alègre seemingly retracted his confession to the murders of Galbardi and Martinez. Khelifi went on to change her testimony in September 2003; she said that Messaoudène was not present during Galbardi's murder. Messaoudène himself claimed to have been in Algeria at the time of Galbardi's murder, presenting stamps of entry and exit from Algeria as an alibi.[18] Khelifi also retracted her previous statement of having been sexually assaulted by the police. She did, however, maintain that Baudis was a perpetrator in the crimes. Khelifi was examined by psychiatrist Daniel Ajzenberg, who stated that her statements were "credible on a psychiatric level".[10] In 2004, Perriquet ordered an investigation into the handling of the case by Homicide 31. Gendarme Michel Roussel and two justice officials were suspected of having conspired against Bourragué. Roussel interrogated Khelifi and Bourre alone even though procedure dictated that at least two officers had to be present. In 2003, a new investigative team was put together to look into the claims made by the former prostitutes. Roussel was subsequently sidelined from the investigation, after which he retired.[10] Roussel later published a book in which he claimed that his investigations were hindered by people within the police force and that the force had been "infiltrated".[10] In 2005, Judge Thierry Perriquet stated that all charges against former Toulouse mayor Dominique Baudis and former deputy prosecutor of Toulouse Marc Bourragué were dismissed.[10] Khelifi and Bourre were sentenced, respectively, to 18 months and three years in prison for perjury, reporting a false crime, and witness bribery in the Puis case. In addition to incarceration, both were deprived of their civil rights for 5 years. On 26 February 2006, the Toulouse Criminal Court found both Khelifi and Bourre guilty of defamation and sentenced them to two and three years' of suspended prison sentences, respectively.[10] Later developmentsAccusations of cover-upThe Alègre affair is considered to have been politically butchered. Some murders were initially declared suicides before Alègre's arrest. Several witnesses claimed that the killer was protected for a long time by police officers and members of the judicial system. Former gendarme, Michel Roussel, noted that there were 191 unsolved murders in the region. The organization Stop to Forget brought together the victims' families, who continue to demand the truth from the case, referring to these disappearances as "camouflaged as suicides and covered by truncated, distorted and sloppy investigations".[19] Roche children claimsThe Alègre affair resurfaced in 2005 when Charles Louis-Roche and Diane Roche, children of Pierre Roche, who had been the president of the justice chamber at Nîmes Court of Appeal during the Alègre affair, claimed that their father had been murdered by a sex trafficking network in which he had implicated himself. Both of them were charged with "aggravated defamation and invasion of privacy". They then went on to create a website to denounce Pierre Roche, as a "corrupt man, unworthy, violent and perverse husband and father", "sickening orgy participant, consumer to the chain of prostitutes of all kinds, who had made their lives a daily hell." Charles and Diane claimed that their father confided to them that he had taken part in the evenings at which ritual sacrifices and tortures took place. They claimed that he had gathered incriminating evidence on people within the network. Charles and Diane claim that later he completely lost his mind and burned tons of documents that were in his possession.[10] Chronology of the case
Deaths related to the case
Alègre's confirmed victims
Suspected victims
References
See alsoBibliography
Press articles
TV documentaries
Related articlesExternal links
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