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This French hotel owner's final shift · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In the fall of twenty ten, a detective was digging
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: through a dresser drawer in a bedroom near Paris, France.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: He was looking for evidence, and when he pulled open
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the last drawer, he found five cell phones hidden inside
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of it. So he powered one of them on and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: he first checked the call history and then also the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: text messages, and then he opened up the photos app
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and he froze. There was this collection of photos on
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: this phone. They were all very similar, and there were
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: just dozens of them, and they all showed the same
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: disturbing thing. But before we get into today's story, if
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered
• 0:37
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  Speaker 1: to you, please go to your local park with the
• 0:47
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• 0:50
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  Speaker 1: of our weekly uploads okay, let's get into today's story.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: On the night of October fourteenth, twenty ten, a forty
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: six year old woman named Natalie Vierme was standing behind
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the counter at the Rose Garden, a bar on the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: outskirts of Paris, France that she owned, and currently she
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: was counting that day's earnings from the register. When a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: couple of regulars at a nearby table began shouting at
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: each other. Natalie immediately yelled at them to keep things
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: sibyl or she'd have the bartender cut them off, and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the argument at that point did die immediately and Natalie
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: went back to counting the money.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Natalie was used to drunks and to rough characters.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Because her bar and the boarding house attached to it
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that she also owned, were full of people like that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Like just last week, Natalie had caught one of her tenants,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a very heavy drinker named Bruno Martin, sneaking money out
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: of this cash register. Now, she'd banned Bruno from the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: bar for obvious reasons, but she'd stopped short of kicking
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: him out of the boarding house completely.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: She knew she'd have to watch him closely.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But she just couldn't bring herself to throw him out
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: on the street because he really had nothing else. You know,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: as difficult as her tenants and the patrons at her
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: bar could be, Natalie did really care about them. She
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: sort of felt like she was born to be a landlady,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and she got real satisfaction out of putting a roof
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: over the heads of people who really needed one, even
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: if they were sort of rowdy and difficult. So, even
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: with all the headaches, Natalie wouldn't have traded the rose
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Garden or you know, the attached boarding house for anything.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And so now she shut the cash register and she
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: placed all the money that she had made into a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: z pouch that she then put into her jacket pocket.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And she looked over at the clock and saw it
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: was eight thirty pm. So she reached for the phone
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: behind the bar and dialed the number for her own apartment.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: After a few rings, Natalie's long term boyfriend answered. He
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: was a forty seven year old man named.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Mark de Trebek.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So Natalie and Mark had been together for twenty five
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: years and you know, never got around to having a wedding.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: But Mark had actually recently begun talking about doing a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: ceremony to make things official, which caught Natalie off guard,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: because in these twenty five years they had been together,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Mark had really never shown any real interest in getting married,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and so this change in Mark. For the most part,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Natalie was actually happy about it, but every now and
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: again she sort of felt like, why is this happening?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: What changed with Mark? But now she told Mark on
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the phone that she was getting ready to leave work
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: and she was going to head home now, and he
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: said that he'd already eaten and might be asleep when
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: she got there, and Natalie's that was fine, and she
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: would just heat up some leftovers and you see him
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: in the morning. As she hung up her bartender, a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: forty seven year old man named Patrice Chebayer came out
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: of the storage room and he was wheeling a keg
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on a hand truck. Patrice had turned up at the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Rose Garden two years ago with practically nothing, and Natalie
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: had given him a cheap room inside of the boarding
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: house and a job behind the bar, and he'd turned
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: out to be surprisingly reliable, and by now she thought
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of him less as an employee and more as a friend.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Natalie asked, Patrie, says he was walking by with this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: keg if he still wanted a ride to his girlfriend's
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: place that night, because if he did, she was getting
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: ready to leave now. And Patrice said, actually, yes he did,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and he would go grab his stuff right now, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: then he put the keg away and he ducked into
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the back again. A moment later, when he came back
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: out with his coat on, ready to leave, Natalie nodded
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: to him, and then she also checked that the waitress
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: had the keys and was good to close up when
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: they were gone, And then Natalie grabbed her scarf off
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the hook by the door and headed out, with Patrese
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: right behind her. It was cold outside, so Natalie wrapped
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that scarf around her neck, and then she and Patrese
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: headed across the parking lot toward her white van. The
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: next morning, around eleven twenty five am on October fifteenth,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a man was out for a walk along this wooded road,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: about a thirty minute drive from the Rose Garden, and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: as he was walking, he happened to glance down into
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the ditch that was running alongside the road, and he
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: spotted a pair of women's boots sticking out of a
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: pile of branches. The man thought the boots might be
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: worth something. So he stepped down into the ditch to
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: get a better look. But as he got closer, he
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: froze because through these branches he could see there was more.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: There was patches of skin and clothing, and he realized
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that these boots were not just lying there on their own,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: they were on the feet of a woman. And so
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: at this point the man scrambled right back out of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the ditch, pulled out his phone, and he called the police.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Two minutes later, police Colonel Joel Ferry of the local
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Criminal Investigations Unit stepped down into that ditch to join
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: a team of crime scene texts. He watched them clear
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: away the last of the branches, and then he moved
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: in closer for a better look at the body. The
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: deceased was a middle aged woman who was lying face
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: down on the ground and her hands were tied with
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a belt behind her back. The text checked her pockets
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: for ID and came up empty. Then they carefully rolled
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: her over and Fairy winced at the site. The victim's
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: face was severely disfigured, like it had been smashed in
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: by something really heavy. Now there was a ton of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: blood on her face and her head, but very little
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: around the rest of her body or really anywhere else
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in the ditch, And since head wounds do tend to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: bleed a lot, that told Fairy that this woman had
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: very likely been killed somewhere else before being dumped here.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Fairy also noticed when he was looking at this woman's
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: hands that there were signs of ratches on them, as
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: if she had been in a struggle. And also we
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: saw that her pants, her shirt, and bra were all
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: ripped open, so there had very likely been a sexual
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: assault component to this attack. As Ferry was taking all
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: this in, another officer called him over to a spot
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that was further down the ditch, about fifty yards away,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and so Fairy walked over and he looked down at
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: what they had found, and it was this thick, heavy
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: branch that was kind of like a big club with
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: blood smeared along one end of it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: It looked like it very likely was the murder weapon.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And looking down at this this huge piece of wood,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: you know, this big club, if you will, I mean,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it really drove home just how brutal this murder really
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: had been. I mean, smashing someone's face in with a branch,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that's something that would take a lot of strength, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: probably a lot of rage, and so whoever killed this
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: woman had wanted to destroy her. Early the next morning,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: on October sixth teenth, twenty ten, Colonel Joel Ferry walked
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: into the interview room of a small town police station
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: near Paris. A lot had happened since yesterday, but the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: biggest development was that the body from the woods now
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: had a name. The victim had been identified as Natalie Vierme,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: a forty six year old bar owner whose boyfriend had
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: reported her missing yesterday morning. An autopsy had been completed overnight,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and it confirmed that Natalie was savagely beaten to death.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: That very likely the killer had used that bloody branch
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that was found fifty yards away from the body and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: had ultimately broken her skull, literally caved.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Her head in.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: However, the killer had not left any physical evidence on
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the body or in the body, which actually suggested that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: very likely sexual assault did not occur, which meant that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Fairy's best shot at idn the killer came down to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that bloody branch that was believed to be the murder
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: weapon and also the belt that was used to bind
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Natalie's hands, and both of those items were currently on
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: their way to the crime lab. But you know, despite that,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: analyzing them would take a few weeks, so in the meantime,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Ferry was just plowing ahead with the investigation. In other ways,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: one of his main priorities right now was finding Natalie's vehicle, which,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: according to her boyfriend who had filed the missing person report,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was a white van, and so that van had still
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: not turned up yet, and so Ferry's team was currently
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: out searching the roads for the vehicle, while Ferry was
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: more focused on just speaking to the people that were
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: closest to Natalie. And so now Ferry took a seat
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: across from his first interview subject, Natalie's boyfriend, Mark detz Rebek,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and so as the victim's partner and the one who
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: actually called the police about her absence, Mark was an
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: obvious suspect, but right now Ferry felt like he at
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: least looked the part of a grieving boyfriend. He was pale,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: he was shaky, and he kept breaking into tears and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: saying he just couldn't believe Natalie was dead.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: And when he finally got.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Himself together, Mark explained that he had last heard from
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Natalie two nights ago, when she'd called around eight thirty
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: pm to just say she was leaving work.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: He had gone to bed, thinking, you know.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: He'd be asleep, she'd get home any minute, and then
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: he'd wake up and he would see her. But when
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: he woke up, the house was empty and her van
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: was not there. Mark instinctively immediately reported her missing, and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: then he'd driven over to the Rose Garden, but Natalie
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: hadn't been there either, so Mark and a friend from
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the bar had gone out looking for her, and they'd
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: still been driving around scanning the roads for Natalie or
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: her white van when Mark had gotten the call that.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Her body had been found.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Colonel Ferry took detailed notes the whole time Mark was speaking.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It seemed kind of strange that Mark wouldn't notice that
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend, who he lived with, was missing until the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: next day. Like even if you went to bed, it
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: just sort of seems like if you expected or any minute,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, wouldn't you have sort of noticed.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: If she just didn't show up.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't you have not been able to drift off to sleep?
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And also Mark's story in general about just having been
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: asleep at the time that his partner was killed is
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: like the worst kind of alibi really, because nobody is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: going to be able to confirm or disprove it. It's
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: sort of like his word against everybody else's. And so
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: now Ferry began asking some sort of uncomfortable follow up
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: questions about Mark and Natalie's relationship, like was there any infidelity,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: did they have any money problems, had they been fighting?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: You know that kind of thing.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: He was looking to see how Mark handled these questions
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: as much as he was listening to his answers, because
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in Ferry's experience, guilty boyfriends or guilty partners tended to
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: get really defensive when you started poking at their relationship.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: But Mark he just looked sort of confused. He said, no,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: they were really happy, and they'd actually been talking about
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: getting legally married soon finally, you know, after twenty five years.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And so Ferry wrote that down, and then he asked
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: about the friend who had helped Mark look for Natalie
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: on the morning that he discovered she was missing, and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Mark explained that the man was actually Natalie's bartender, a guy.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Named Patrice Cheballer.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Patrice didn't drive, so Natalie would sometimes drop him off
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: at his girlfriend's place on her way home from work
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and from speaking to Patrice yesterday, Mark understood that she
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: had given him.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: A ride on the night she was ultimately killed.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Fairy's pen immediately stopped when he heard that, because this
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: was the first time he was hearing that Natalie hadn't
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: been alone when she left the bar that night, and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: it meant.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: That he needed to speak to Patrise as soon as possible.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Later that afternoon, Colonel Ferry sat in a corner of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Natalie's bar, the Rose Garden.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: It was closed because of the.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Murder, and so Fairy was now using the space for interviews,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: starting with the bartender Patrese, and Patrice confirmed what Mark
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: had said that Natalie did sometimes give him a ride
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: after work to his girlfriend's place, and on the night
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that she was killed, she had done just that. Patrice said,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you know, on the night that she was killed, you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: after he got dropped off, he said, she just drove
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: off and that was the last he saw her. He
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: didn't think anything of it. It was sort of like
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: business as usual.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: At this point.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Ferry told Patrice that while he understood that from you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: his POV, this seemed like, you know, hey, this is
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: what happened.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I don't remember anything else.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Fine, but at this point you are officially the last
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: known person to see Natalie alive and right before she
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: likely was killed. And so because of that, the police
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: needed to take his DNA, and also they needed the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: contact information for his girlfriend so they could verify the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: time that Patrice had gotten home. And Patrice immediately nodded
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and said he understood and was genuinely happy to cooperate,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever they needed. He said he owed Natalie
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a lot for giving him a job and a place
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to live when he was.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Really down on his luck.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Now he sounded very genuine as he said that, But
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Fairy couldn't help but feel really skeptical, and he wanted
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to see what Patrice would do if he gave him
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the chance to point the finger at somebody else. So
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: before ending the interview, Ferry asked Patrice if he was
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: aware of anyone that Natalie was having trouble with, like
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in particular of late, has she had any recent issues
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: with anybody? And Patrice did not hesitate. He said there
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: was one tenant in particular, a very mean drunk named
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Bruno Martin, who'd been giving Natalie problems really for months.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Ferry made a note of the name and would follow
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: up with him, But he also made a note that
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Patrice had taken the bait a bit too easily, but
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: either way, this Bruno was definitely somebody Fairy did need
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to speak with. An hour later, Ferry was still sitting
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: in that same corner of the bar, only now he
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: was sitting across from this very scruffy looking man in
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a stained jacket. This was Bruno Marton, the tenant that
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Patrice had mentioned that apparently had been giving Natalie issue,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and by now a bunch of other tenants and employees
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: had confirmed that Bruno was sort of like a violent
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and alcoholic who really had clashed with Natalie on a
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: pretty regular basis, And in fact, just a week before
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the murder, Natalie had apparently caught Bruno breaking into the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: bar's cash register and she'd slapped him across the face
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: before throwing him out of the bar, apparently for good
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: this time, like he was banned from the bar because
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of this. So it really did sound like Bruno might
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: be a pretty suspicious guy here, he could have harbored
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a grudge. But there was something else Ferry had learned
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that made Bruno's history actually even more interesting, and that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: was that on the night of the murder, right before
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Natalie left the Rose Garden for the last time, she
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: had emptied the cash register and taken the money with her,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: but no money had been found on or anywhere near
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: her body, which meant that one possible motive for this
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: crime was simply robbery. And the fact that Bruno had
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: recently been caught stealing literally from the same register by
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the same woman who who was murdered was starting to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: make him look really suspicious. And so when Faery pretty
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: aggressively pressed Bruno on all of this, Bruno got really flustered.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: He snapped that, you know, he wasn't a thief, and
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that Natalie had been wrong to blame him in the
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: first place.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: You know, he thought it was just a cash registered discrepancy,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: he called it. He admitted that he and Natalie had
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: never really gotten along, that was true, but he still
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: said that he hadn't killed her, and that he'd spent
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the night of the murder alone in his room, like
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: he wasn't out there doing anything.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And so Bruno, you know.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: He diligently took these notes and he's just letting Bruno talk.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: And then at some point when there was a break.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Ferry said, okay, well, will you give a DNA sample
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: so you can be ruled out. He said that he
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: was taking samples from everybody at the Rose Garden, tenants
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and staff included. But right away Ferry could see that
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Bruno did not like this idea. Bruno glared at Ferry
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: with his teeth visibly clenched, and so Fairy is getting
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: ready for this guy to refuse the DNA sample. But then,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: much to fairy surprise, Bruno, you know, with gritted teeth
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and with this angry look on his face, he nodded
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and said, fine, if that's what it took to get
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the police office.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Back, you'd do it.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So Ferry started getting out the DNA kit to swab
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Bruno while also processing everything he just learned. The interviews
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: so far had turned up three strong suspects. There was Bruno,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the alcoholic with an apparent grudge. There was Patrese, the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: bartender who had left the bar with Natalie on the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: night she was killed. And there was Mark, the boyfriend
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: with you know, the sleeping alibi. At this point, any
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: one of them could be the killer, and Ferry knew
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: he wasn't going to be able to rule any of
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: them out by interviews alone. What he needed now was
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: some real hard evidence. About a week later, on the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: morning of October twenty fourth, Ferry was standing in the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: police station's garage in front of what looked to be
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: like an evidence gold mine. His team had finally found
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Natalie's missing white van. It had been abandoned on the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: side of a road about five miles or so from
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: where her body had been dumped. And this van was
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: covered in blood on the hood and on the grill
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and inside on the floor, and so now a blood
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: spatter analyst took Fairy and was walking him around the vehicle,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: explaining what they could learn from all the blood. The
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: analyst explained that based on the shape of the droplets
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and the distance between them, all their team could tell
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that the blood on the van's front had sprayed onto
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the hood, which meant that Natalie's heart had been beating
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: when this blood left her body that wound up right here. Meanwhile,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the blood that was inside the van in the back
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of the van on the floor had clearly leaked there
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: rather than sprayed, implying that she was dead.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Before she was loaded into the van. Because her heart
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: was not beating.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So for Fairy, you know, putting those details together had
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: actually told him quite a bit. It looked like someone
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: had killed Natalie in front of her van, and then
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: after she was dead, they put her body in the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: back of the van and then drove her van with
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: her in it to the ditch, dumped her, and then
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: drove the vehicle away.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And dumped it nearby.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: And so at this point it was like Fairy had
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: what he believed was like the clearest picture of the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: crime yet. But you know, despite having this clarity, he
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: still didn't know who killed Natalie, And so for that
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Fairy had spent the last few days looking into his
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: suspects alibis, and two of them turned out to be
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: pretty solid. Bruno's alibi checked out because several phone calls
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: had been made from his room in the middle of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the night, and so unless someone else had gone into
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: his room and placed those calls, it looked very much
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: like Bruno really had spent the night at home.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Patrese's alibi had also held up.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: His girlfriend had confirmed that Patrese really had been dropped
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: off at her apartment soon after leaving the Rose Garden,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: which left him virtually no time at all to kill Natalie,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: dump the body, dump the car, and get back like
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it seemed virtually impossible. Now Ferry knew that the girlfriend
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: could definitely be covering for Patrise, but still this was
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a stronger alibi than Marx, the long term boyfriend, who
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: had said he'd been home asleep all night with absolutely
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: nobody there to confirm or deny it. And so Mark,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: by process of elimination, was really starting to look like
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the guy like he is the killer. But still all
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: three suspects are still in play despite the two strong alibis,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and so now Faery really just needed the crime lab
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to get back to him with the results from the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: DNA testing. A few weeks later, in November of twenty ten,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Colonel Ferry was in his office when he got the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: call he'd been waiting for. The crime lab had found
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: DNA on the belt that was used to bind Natalie's hands,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and the DNA belonged to one of Ferry's three suspects.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So imediately made some phone calls, and later that same
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: afternoon he walked back into the police station's interview room
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and sat down across from the bartender patrese Chevalier, when
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Fairy told Patrice that his DNA was found on Natalie's belt.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Patrice turned pale and put his face in his hands,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and for a second Ferry thought he was about to confess,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and when Patrice looked up again, he even did say
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that there was something he needed to tell Ferry that
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: he had left out in the first interview, but it
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: was not a confession. Patrice, who looked visibly pretty shaken
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: up here, like he was sort of panicking, he said
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that he actually wasn't that surprised that his DNA was
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: found on that belt, because he said they'd been sleeping
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: together for weeks.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Before she was killed.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: This was shocking for Fairy, I mean, he did not
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: expect there to be like a secret affair going on,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: but instead of interrupting or asking questions, he just let
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Patrise keep going. And Patrice would go on to explain
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that Natalie had apparently been very frustrated with her long
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: term boyfriend Mark. She thought that he was cheating on
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: her and that his recent talk about them getting married
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: was just a way to cover up his bad behavior.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: And he said that her suspicion around Mark had been
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the main driver that had prompted her to make a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: move on him on Patrise, Patrice said, you know, he
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: was attracted to her, and when she came on to him,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: he just he couldn't say no. Colonel Faery just stared
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: at Patrice as he finished this, the story he was
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: telling to Fairy, this this had to.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Be a lie.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: It just felt way too convenient, like Patrice was literally
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: just spinning a story to explain away the DNA found
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: on the dead body. I mean, this is this is
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: quite the convenient story here. But if there was any
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: chance that this was true, obviously Fairy had to know
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: because if Natalie had been cheating, it gave Mark a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: very powerful motive, like if he knew about it, which
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: meant that the DNA on the belt had not closed
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the case at all, but it actually just shifted it
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: in a new direction. And so Ferry would spend another
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: hour questioning Patrise all about this affair and getting all
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the details he could before ultimately releasing him, and then
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: he made a call to a local judge. There was
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: one way to know for sure if Mark was hiding something.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Ferry was going to tap Mark's phone and spy on him.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: One morning in November of twenty ten, about a month
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: after Natalie Vieerme was murdered, police Colonel Joel Ferry sat
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in his office at a police station near Paris reviewing
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a transcript from the wiretap on Mark's phone, and Ferry
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: almost couldn't believe what he was reading because it looked
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: like Patrice had been telling the truth about Mark cheating
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: on Natalie.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: The wiretap had recorded phone calls.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Between Mark and a woman, and reading between the lines,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it seemed like these two had been seeing each other
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: for some time, maybe even for years. On one of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: these calls, Mark had complained to this woman that he
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: had always been the one who had had to travel
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: to see her like in the past, and it was
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: time that she came to him for a change. And
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: then before they hung up, during this same phone call,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: this woman signed off by calling Mark my love. And
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: so this completely upended Fairy's view of Mark, while Patrese's
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: story suddenly seemed a lot more plausible, and if both
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Mark and Natalie had been unfaithful, like Patrice was saying,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a cave Mark a really serious motive here. Around nine
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: am the next morning, Ferry sat in the police station
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: interview room across from Mark, who was staring back at
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: him with a truly stunned expression. Ferry had just confronted Mark,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: revealing that he knew about the affair. When Mark finally
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: found his voice, he stammered that Fairy.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Had it all wrong.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: The woman he had been talking to was just an
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: old boss that he kept in touch with, and he
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: insisted that despite what you may think about what we
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: were saying to each other, there had never been anything
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: sexual between them. Ferry found this extremely hard to believe,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and certainly based on how sort of frantic Mark seemed
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: right now, it did seem like he was being overly defensive,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and also now that Ferry knew Mark assuming this this
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: affair was real, that he was cheating on Natalie, that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: that meant he had a real motive to get rid
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: of Natalie, and the fact that he didn't have an
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: alibi for the night of the murder that he was
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: asleep was really a glaring red flag at this point.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: But even so, Fairy knew he couldn't just arrest Mark
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: on a hunch. Mark's DNA had not been recovered from
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the belt, from the body, from the murder weapon or
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the van, so without any evidence actually tying him to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the murder, Ferry had no choice but to eventually turn
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: him loose, and after Mark left, Fairy just sat alone
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: for a moment, just thinking over the case. The evidence
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: of a potential affair between Mark and this this former
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: boss of his had certainly launched Mark to the very
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: top of the suspect list, but Ferry was still quite
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: suspicious of the other two men on it, despite their
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: alibis being much more solid. After all, Patrese's DNA had
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: literally been found on Natalie's belt that was used to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: bind her arms, and no matter how plausible his affair
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: story was of his affair with Natalie, that fact doesn't
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: just go away. I mean, your DNA was basically on
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: a dead body. And then there was Natalie's very difficult tenant, Bruno.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: The missing cash from the cash register had never turned up,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: which meant robbery was still very much a potential motive here,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and Bruno had already been caught stealing from the same
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: register once before, so it seemed like he really could
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: have done this just for the money. And so after
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a little while, after thinking over these these three suspects
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: really closely, Ferry came to a decision.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: There was one person he really.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Needed to talk to, and if he was right, they
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: could help clear all of this up. A few days later,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Fairy was once again back inside of a police interview room,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: but this time he was sitting across from a woman.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: He believed she held the key to this whole case.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: He just needed her to tell him the truth. At first,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: she was very hesitant, but fairry. He kept on pushing
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and pushing, and eventually she broke and she told him
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: everything he needed to know. Based on forensic evidence and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: witness testimony, this is what police belief happened to Natalie
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Vieerme On the night of October fourteenth, twenty ten. The
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: killer stood in the dark, watching Natalie as she crossed
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: in front of her van.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: The killer had.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Been thinking about this for a long time, thinking about
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Natalie and thinking about the way things were supposed to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: be between them, and they'd prepared for this earlier that day.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: They had found this heavy branch that would make a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: perfect weapon, like a big club, and they had stowed
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: it away, and that same afternoon, the killer had made
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: a phone call to ensure they got away with what
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: they were planning, and so as Natalie passed by her van,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the killer made their move. They rushed up and they
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: grabbed Natalie from behind, and as she twisted around the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: pouch with the cash register, money fell from her pocket.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Natalie she fought back, thrashing and screaming as loud as
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: she could, but the killer wrestled her to the ground
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and managed to strip off her belt and then bound
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: her hands. The killer tried to undress her further, but
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Natalie just would not stop fighting, and so the killer
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: began to panic, and they decided they needed to silence
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: her before anybody heard, and so they tried strangling Natalie
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: with her own scarf, but Natalie kept on fighting. She
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't passing out, and so when this didn't work, they
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: pulled out that heavy branch their club and they smashed
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Natalie in the face until she went still. By the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: time it was all over, the front of Natalie's van
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: was splattered all over the place with blood. The killer
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: scooped up that money pouch off the road, and then
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: they carried Natalie's body inside to the back of the van,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: loaded her inside, and then tossed the branch in with her.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Then they took the keys to her van from her
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: pockets and then the killer climbed into the front seat
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and drove off looking for somewhere remote where the body
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: might go unnoticed, and they found a spot that looked
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: pretty good.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: They pulled over.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: They pulled her body out of the van and dumped
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: it into a ditch off the side of the road,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and then threw some branches on top of it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: By the time the killer got back.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: To the van, it was nearly five am, and so
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: they hopped back in the van. They drove it a
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: few miles down the road before they abandoned it, and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: so at that point they just started the long walk
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: back to the Rose Garden. And this same person was
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: there at the Rose Garden when Mark, the longtime boyfriend,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: showed up saying that Natalie was missing, and that's when
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the killer volunteered to go help him look for her.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It would turn out Natalie was murdered by Patrice Chevaler,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the Rose Gardens bartender. The crucial clue came from Patrice's
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: own girlfriend, who was the woman Fairy had summoned to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the police station for that critical interview. The girlfriend had
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: previously confirmed Patrese's alibi, but when Fairy pressed her on it,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: the second time she was brought in to be spoken to,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: she admitted that Patrice had asked her to lie, and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: she had, And apparently Patrice had not asked her to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: lie after the murder had been committed. No, Patrice called
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend hours before he murdered Natalie and instructed her
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: on exactly what to tell the police, which proved that
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: he had planned Natalie's murder ahead of time. After his
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: girlfriend came clean, investigators searched Patrice's room at the Rose
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Garden and they found a stash of hidden cell phones.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: And on these phones were dozens and dozens of photos
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of Natalie that clearly had been taken secretly, of her,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: like from under tables and you know, from behind her,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: clearly designed to try to capture, you know, images of
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: her that were sort of risque. Patrice had never been
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Natalie's lover. He'd been obsessed with her for years, you know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: secretly taking those photos of her and watching her all
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: the time. But his story about the two of them
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: having an affair had been a total fabrication one. It
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: was a story that was designed to cover up the
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: fact that his DNA was found on the belt used
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to bind her hands, but also one could assume that
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: he was sort of living out this lie because he's
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: still even after killing her, even after basically being caught
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: for murder, was like pretending that he had this real
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: relationship with Natalie, and so maybe it gave him some
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: satisfaction to pretend that they had had this affair, because
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: you know who's going to say otherwise at this point
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: was dead, and so ultimately Patrici Chevalier was convicted of
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: murder and sentenced to twenty years in prison.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the comments, And remember, we have a whole playlist of
• 32:20
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• 32:23
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• 32:26
  Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya,