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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In the fall of 2010, a detective was digging through
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a dresser drawer in a bedroom near Paris, France.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: He was looking for evidence.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And when he pulled open the last drawer, he found
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: five cell phones hidden.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Inside of it.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So he powered one of them on and he first
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: checked the call history and then also the text messages.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And then he opened up the photos app and he froze.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: There was this collection of photos on this phone. They
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: were all very similar. And there were just dozens of them.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and they all showed the same disturbing thing. But before
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: we get into today's story, if you're a fan of
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• 1:05
  Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On the night of October 14th, 2010,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a 46-year-old woman named Natalie Vierme was standing behind the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: counter at the Rose Garden, a bar on the outskirts
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of Paris, France, that she owned. And currently, she was
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: counting that day's earnings from the register when a couple
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of regulars at a nearby table began shouting.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: At each other.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Natalie immediately, you know, yelled at them to keep things
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: civil 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. Natalie was used to
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: drunks and to rough characters because her bar and the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: boarding house attached to it that she also owned were
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: full of people like that. Like, just last week, Natalie
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: had caught one of her tenants, a very heavy drinker
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: named Bruno Martin, sneaking money out of this cash register.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Now, she'd banned Bruno from the bar.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: For obvious reasons, but she'd stopped short of kicking him
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: 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: zip-up pouch that she then put into her jacket pocket.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Then she looked over at the clock and saw it
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: was 8.30 p.m. So she reached for the phone behind
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: 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 was
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a 47-year-old man named.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Marc de Trebek.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So Natalie and Marc had been together for 25 years and,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you know, never got around to having a wedding. But
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Mark had actually recently begun talking about doing a ceremony
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to make things official, which caught Natalie off guard because
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in these 25 years they had been together, Mark had
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: really never shown any real interest in getting married. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: so this change in Mark, for the most part, Natalie
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: was actually happy about it. But every now and again,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: she sort of felt like, why is this happening now?
• 3:49
  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 said that was fine, and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: she would just heat up some leftovers and.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: You know, see him in the morning.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: As she hung up, her bartender, a 47-year-old man named
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Patrice Chevalier, came out.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Of the storage room, and he was wheeling a keg
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: on a hand truck.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Patrice had turned up at the Rose Garden two years
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: ago with practically nothing, and Natalie had given him a
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: cheap room inside of the boarding house. and a job
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: behind the bar. And he turned out to be surprisingly reliable.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And by now she thought of him less as an
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: employee and more as a friend. Natalie asked Patrice as
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: he was walking by with this keg, if he still
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: wanted a ride to his girlfriend's place that night, because
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: if he did, she was getting ready to leave now.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: And Patrice said, actually, yes, he did. And he would
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: go grab his stuff right now. And then he put
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the keg away and he ducked into the back again.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: A moment later, when he came back out with his
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: coat on, you know, ready to leave, Natalie nodded to him,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and then she also checked that the waitress had the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: keys and was good to close up when they were gone,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and then Natalie grabbed her scarf off the hook by
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the door and headed out with Patrice right behind her.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: It was cold outside, so Natalie wrapped that scarf around
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: her neck, and then she and Patrice headed across the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: parking lot toward her white van. The next morning, around 11.25 a.m.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: on October 15th, a man was out for a walk
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: along this wooded road about a 30-minute drive from the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Rose Garden. And as he was walking, he happened to
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: glance down into the ditch that was running alongside the road.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And he spotted a pair of women's boots sticking out
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of a pile of branches. The man thought the boots
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: might be worth something. So he stepped down into the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: ditch to get a better look. But as he got closer,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: he froze. Because through these branches, he could see there
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: was more. There was patches of skin and clothing. And
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: he realized that these boots were not just lying there
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: on their own. They were on the feet of a woman.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And so at this point, the man scrambled right back
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: out of the ditch, pulled out his phone, and he
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: called the police. About 30 minutes later, Police Colonel Joel
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Ferry of the local criminal investigations unit stepped down into
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: that ditch to join a team of crime scene techs.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: He watched them clear away the last of the branches,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and then he moved in closer for a better look
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: at the body. The deceased was a middle-aged woman who
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: was lying face down on the ground, and her hands
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: were were tied with a belt behind her back. The
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: techs checked her pockets for ID and came up empty.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Then they carefully rolled her over and very winced at
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the sight. The victim's face was severely disfigured, like it
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: had been smashed in by something really heavy. Now, there
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: was a ton of blood on her face and her head,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: but very little around the rest of her body or
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: really anywhere else.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: In the ditch.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: And since head wounds do tend to bleed a lot,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: That told Ferry that this woman had very likely been
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: killed somewhere else before being dumped here. Ferry also noticed
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: when he was looking at this woman's hands that there
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: were signs of scratches on them, as if she had
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: been in a struggle.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And also he saw that her pants, her shirt, and
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: bra were all ripped open.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So there had very likely been a sexual assault component
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to this attack. As Ferry was taking all this in,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Another officer called him over to a spot that was
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: further down the ditch, about 50 yards away.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And so Ferry walked over, and he looked down at
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: 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. It looked like
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it very likely was the murder weapon. And looking down
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: at this.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Huge piece of wood, you.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Know, this big club, if you will, I mean, it
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: really drove home just how brutal this.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Murder really had been.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, smashing someone's face in with a branch, that's
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: something that would take a lot of strength and probably
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of rage. And so whoever killed this woman
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: had wanted to destroy her. Early the next morning, on
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: October 16th, 2010, Colonel Joel Ferry walked into the interview
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: room of a small town police station near Paris. A
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: lot had happened since yesterday, but the biggest development was
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that the body from the woods now had a name.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: The victim had been identified as Natalie Vierme, a 46-year-old
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: bar owner whose boyfriend had reported her missing yesterday morning.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: An autopsy had been completed overnight, and it confirmed that
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Natalie was savagely beaten to death, that very likely the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: killer had used that bloody branch that was found 50
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: yards away from the body, and had ultimately broken her skull,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: literally caved her head in. However, the killer had not
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: left any physical evidence on the body or in the body,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: which actually suggested that very likely sexual assault did not occur,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: which meant that Ferry's best shot at IDing the killer
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: came down to that bloody branch that was believed to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: be the murder weapon and also the belt that was
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: used to bind Natalie's hands.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And both of those items were currently on their way
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to the crime lab.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But, you know, despite that, analyzing them would take a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: few weeks. So in the meantime... Ferry was just plowing
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: ahead with the investigation in other ways. One of his
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: main priorities right now was finding Natalie's vehicle, which, according
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to her boyfriend who had filed the missing person report,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was a white van.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And so that van had still not turned up yet.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And so Ferry's team was currently out searching the roads
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: for the vehicle, while Ferry was more focused on just
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: speaking to the people that were closest to Natalie. And
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: so now Ferry took a seat across from his first
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: interview subject, Natalie's boyfriend, Marc Detrebecq. And so as the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: victim's partner and the one who actually called the police
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: about her absence, Mark was an obvious suspect. But right now,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Ferry felt like he at least looked the part of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a grieving boyfriend. He was pale, he was shaky, and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: he kept breaking into tears and saying he just couldn't
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: believe Natalie was dead. And when he finally got himself together,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Mark explained that he had last heard from Natalie two
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: nights ago when she called around 8.30 p.m.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: To just say she was leaving work.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He had gone to bed thinking, you know, he'd be asleep,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: she'd get home any minute, and then he'd wake up
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and he would see her. But when he woke up,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the house was empty and her van was not there.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Mark instinctively immediately reported her missing, and then he'd driven
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: over to the Rose Garden, but Natalie hadn't been there either.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So Mark and a friend from the bar had gone
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: out looking for her, and they'd still been driving around
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: scanning the roads for Natalie or her white van when
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Mark had gotten the call that 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 her any minute,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, wouldn't you have sort of.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Noticed if she just didn't show up? Wouldn't you have
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: 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 now,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Ferry began asking some sort of uncomfortable follow-up questions about
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Mark and Natalie's relationship.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Like, was there any infidelity? Did they have any money problems?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Had they been fighting? 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 2: But Mark, he just looked sort of confused. He said, no,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: they were really happy, and.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: They'd actually been talking about getting legally married soon, finally,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you know, after 25 years. And so Ferry wrote that down,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and then he asked about the friend who had helped
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Mark look for Natalie on the morning that he discovered
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: she was missing. And Mark explained that the man was
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: actually Natalie's bartender, a guy.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Named Patrice Chevalier. Patrice didn't drive.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: So Natalie would sometimes drop him off at his girlfriend's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: place on her way home from work. And from speaking
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to Patrice yesterday, Mark understood that she had given him
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a ride on the night she was ultimately killed. Ferry's
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: pen immediately stopped when he heard that, because this was
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the first time he was hearing that Natalie hadn't been
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: alone when she left the bar that night.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: And it meant that he needed to speak to Patrice
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: 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 Ferry was now using the space for interviews,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: starting with the bartender, Patrice. 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 of her.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: He didn't think anything of it. It was sort of
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: like business as usual.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: At this point, Ferry told Patrice that while he understood
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: that from, you know, his POV, this seemed like, you know, hey,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: this is what happened.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I don't remember anything else. Fine.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But at this point, you are officially the last known
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: person to see Natalie alive and right before she likely
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: was killed. And so because of that, The police needed
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: to take his DNA and also they needed the contact
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: information for his girlfriend so they could verify the time
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that Patrice had gotten home. And Patrice immediately nodded and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: said he understood and was genuinely happy to cooperate, you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: whatever they needed. He said he owed Natalie a lot
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: for giving him a job and a place to live
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: when he was really down on his luck. Now, he
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: sounded very genuine as he said that, but Ferry couldn't help.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: But feel really skeptical.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: And he wanted to see what Patrice would do if
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: he gave him the chance to point the finger at
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: somebody else. So before ending the interview, Ferry asked Patrice
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: if he was aware of anyone that Natalie was having
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: trouble with, like in particular of late. Has she had
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: any recent issues with anybody?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: And Patrice did not hesitate.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: He said there was one tenant in particular, a very
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: mean drunk named Bruno Martin, who'd been giving Natalie problems
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: really for months. Ferry made a note of the name
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and would follow up with him. but he also made
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: a note that Patrice had taken the bait a bit
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: too easily. But either way, this Bruno was definitely somebody
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Ferry did need to speak with. An hour later, Ferry
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was still sitting in that same corner of the bar,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: only now he was sitting across from this very scruffy-looking
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: man in a stained jacket. This was Bruno Martin, the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: tenant that Patrice had mentioned that apparently had been giving
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Natalie issue. And by now, a bunch of other tenants
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and employees had confirmed that Bruno was sort of like
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a violent alcoholic who really had clashed with Natalie on
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a pretty regular basis. And in fact, just a week
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: before the murder, Natalie had apparently caught Bruno breaking.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Into the bar's cash register.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And she'd slapped him across the face before throwing him
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: out of the bar. Apparently for good this time. Like
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: he was banned from the bar because of this. So
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it really did sound like Bruno might be a pretty
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: suspicious guy here. He could have harbored a grudge. But
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: there was something else Ferry had learned that made Bruno's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: history actually even more interesting. And that was that on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the night of the murder, right before Natalie left the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Rose Garden for the last time, she had emptied the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: cash register and taken the money with her. But no
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: money had been found on or anywhere near her body,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: which meant that one possible motive for this crime was
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: simply robbery. And the fact that Bruno had recently been
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: caught stealing money literally from the same register by the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: same woman who was murdered, was starting to make him
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: look really suspicious. And so when Ferry pretty aggressively pressed
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Bruno on all of this, Bruno got really flustered. He
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: snapped that, you know, he wasn't a thief and that
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Natalie had been wrong to blame him in the first place.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: You know, he thought it was just a cash register discrepancy,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: he called it. He admitted that he and Natalie had
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: never really gotten along.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: That was true.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: But He still said that he hadn't killed her and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: that he'd spent the night of the murder alone in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: his room. Like he wasn't out there doing anything. And
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: so Bruno, you know, he diligently took these notes and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: he's just letting Bruno talk. And then at some point
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: when there was a break, Ferry said, okay, well, will
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you give a DNA sample so you can be ruled out?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: He said that he was taking samples from everybody at
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the Rose Garden, tenants and staff included.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: But right away, Ferry could see that Bruno did not
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: like this idea.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Bruno glared at Ferry with his teeth visibly clenched. And
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: so Ferry is getting ready for this guy to refuse
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the DNA sample. But then, much to Ferry's surprise, Bruno,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, with gritted teeth and with this angry look
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: on his face, he nodded and said, fine.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: If that's what it took to get the police office back,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: you 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 Patrice, 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 with,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the sleeping alibi. At this point, any one
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of them could be the killer. And Ferry knew he.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Wasn't going to be able to rule any of them
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: out by interviews alone. What he needed now was some
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: real hard evidence.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: About a week later, on the morning of October 24th,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Ferry was standing in the police station's garage in front
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of what looked to be like an evidence gold mine.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: His team had finally found Natalie's missing white van. It
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: had been abandoned on the side of a road about
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: five miles or so from where her body had been dumped.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And this van was covered in blood. On the hood
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and on the grill and inside on the floor.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: And so now.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a blood spatter analyst took Ferry and was walking him
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: around the vehicle, explaining what they could learn from all
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the blood. The analyst explained that based on the shape
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of the droplets and the distance between them all, their
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: team could tell that the blood on the van's front
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: had sprayed onto the hood, which meant that Natalie's heart
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: had been beating when this blood left her body that
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: wound up right here. Meanwhile, the blood that was inside
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the van, in the back of the van on the floor,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: had clearly leaked there rather than sprayed, implying that she
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: was dead before she was loaded into the van because her.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Heart was not beating.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So for Ferry, you know, putting those details together, it
• 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 and dumped it nearby. And so
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: at this point, it was like Ferry had what he
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: believed was like the clearest.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Picture of the crime yet.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: But, you know, despite having this clarity, he still didn't
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: know who killed Natalie. And so for that, Ferry had
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: spent the last few days looking into his suspect's alibis.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: And two of them turned out to be pretty solid.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Bruno's alibi checked out because several phone calls had been
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: made from his room in the middle of the night...
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And so unless someone else had gone into his room
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and placed those calls, it looked very much like Bruno
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: really had spent the night at home.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Patrice's alibi had also held up.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: His girlfriend had confirmed that Patrice 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 Patrice. But still, this was
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a stronger alibi than Mark's, the long-term boyfriend, who had
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: said he'd been home asleep all night with absolutely nobody
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: there to confirm or deny it. And so Mark, by
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: process of elimination, was really starting to look like the guy,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: like he is the killer. But still, all three suspects
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: are still in play, despite the two strong alibis. And
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: so now Ferry really just needed the crime lab to
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: get back to him with the results from the DNA testing.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: A few weeks later, in November of 2010, Colonel Ferry
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: was in his office when he got the call he'd
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: been waiting for. The crime lab had found DNA on
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the belt that was used to bind Natalie's hands.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And the DNA.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Belonged to one of Ferry's three suspects. So Ferry immediately
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: made some phone calls. And later that same afternoon, he
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: walked back into the police station's interview room and sat
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: down across from the bartender, Patrice Chevalier. When Ferry told
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Patrice that his DNA was found on Natalie's belt, Patrice
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: turned pale and put his face in his hands. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: The first interview. But it was not a confession.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Patrice, who looked visibly pretty shaken up here, like he
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was sort of panicking, he said that he actually wasn't
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that surprised that his DNA was found on that belt
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: because he said they'd been sleeping together for weeks before
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: she was killed. This was shocking for Ferry. I mean,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: he did not expect there to be like a secret
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: affair going on. But instead of interrupting or asking questions,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: he just let Patrice keep going. And Patrice would go
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: on to explain that Natalie had apparently been very frustrated
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: with her long-term boyfriend, Mark. She thought that he was
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: cheating on her and that his recent talk about them
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: getting married was just a way to cover up his
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: bad behavior. And he said that her suspicion around Mark
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: had been the main driver that had prompted her to
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: make a move on him, on Patrice. Patrice said, you know,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: he was attracted to her and when she came on
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to him, he just couldn't say no. Colonel Ferry just
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: stared at Patrice as he finished the story he was telling.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: To Ferry, this had to be a lie. It just
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: felt way too convenient.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Like, Patrice was literally just spinning a story to explain
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: away the DNA found on the dead body. I mean,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: this is quite the convenient story here. But if there
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: was any chance that this was true, obviously Ferry had
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to know. Because if Natalie had been cheating, it gave
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Mark a very powerful motive.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Like if he knew about it.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Which meant the DNA on the belt had not closed
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the case at all. It had actually just shifted it
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: in a new direction. And so Ferry would spend another
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: hour questioning Patrice 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 2010, about a month after
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Natalie Vierme was murdered, police colonel Joel Ferry sat in
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: his office at a police station near Paris reviewing a
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: transcript from the wiretap on Mark's phone. And Ferry almost
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: couldn't believe what he was reading. because it looked like
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Patrice had been telling the truth about Mark cheating on Natalie.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: The wiretap had recorded phone calls between Mark and a woman.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And reading between the lines, it seemed like these two
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: had been seeing each other for some time, maybe even
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: for years.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: On one of these calls, Mark had complained to this.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Woman that he had always been the one who had
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: had to travel to see her like in the past.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And it was time that she came to him for
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: a change.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And then before they hung up during the 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 Ferry's view of Mark, while Patrice'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: it gave Mark a really serious motive here.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Around 9 a.m.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: The next morning, Ferry sat in the police station interview
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: room across from Mark, who was staring back at him
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: 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 Ferry had it all wrong.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: The woman he'd been talking to was just an old
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: boss that he kept in touch with, and he insisted
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that despite what you may think about what we were
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: saying to each other, there had never been anything sexual
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: between them. Ferry found this extremely hard to believe, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: certainly based on how Sort of frantic Mark seemed right now.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: It did seem like he was being overly defensive. And
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: also now that Ferry knew Mark, assuming this affair was real,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: that he was cheating on Natalie, that that meant he
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: had a real motive to get rid of Natalie.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And the fact that he.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Didn't have an alibi for the night of the murder,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: that he was asleep, was really a glaring red flag
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: at this point. But even so, Ferry knew he couldn't
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: just arrest Mark on a hunch. Mark's DNA had not
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: been recovered from the belt, from the body, from the
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: murder weapon, or the van. So without any evidence actually
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: tying him to the murder, Ferry had no choice but
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to eventually turn him loose. And after Mark left, Ferry
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: just sat alone for a moment, just thinking over the case.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: The evidence of a potential affair between Mark and this
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: former boss of his... had certainly launched Mark to the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: very top of the suspect list. But Ferry was still
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: quite suspicious of the other two men on it, despite
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: their alibis being.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Much more solid.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: After all, Patrice's DNA had literally been found on Natalie's
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: belt that was used to bind her arms. And no
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: matter how plausible his affair story was of his affair
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: with Natalie, that fact doesn't just go away. I mean,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: your DNA was basically on a dead body. And then
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: there was Natalie's very difficult tenant, Bruno. The missing cash
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: from the cash register had never turned up, which meant
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: robbery was still very much a potential motive here.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And Bruno had already.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Been caught stealing from the same register once before, so
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: it seemed like he really could have done this just
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: for the money. And so after a little while, after
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: thinking over these three suspects really closely, Ferry came to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a decision. There was one person he really needed to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: talk to, and if he was right, they could help
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: clear all of this up.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: A few days later, Ferry was.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Once again back inside of a police interview room, but
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: this time he was sitting across.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: 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 Ferry, he kept on pushing
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and pushing, and eventually she broke, and she told him
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: everything he needed to know. Based on forensic evidence and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: witness testimony, this is what police believe happened to Natalie
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Vierme on the night of October 14, 2010. The killer
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: stood in the dark, watching Natalie as she crossed in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: front of her van. The killer had been thinking about
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: this for a long time, thinking about Natalie.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Thinking about the way things were supposed to be between them.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And they'd prepared for this moment.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Earlier that day, they had found this heavy branch that
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: would make a perfect weapon, like a big club, and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: they had stowed it away. And that same afternoon, the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: killer had made a phone call to ensure they got away.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: With what they were planning. So as Natalie passed by
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: her van, the killer made their move. They rushed up
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: and they grabbed Natalie from behind.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And as she twisted around, The pouch with the cash
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: register money fell from her pocket. Natalie, she fought back,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: thrashing and screaming as loud as she could. But the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: killer wrestled her to the ground and managed to strip
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: off her belt and then bound her hands. The killer
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: tried to undress her further, but Natalie just would not
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: stop fighting. And so the killer began to panic and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: they decided they needed to silence her before anybody heard.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And so they tried strangling Natalie with her own scarf,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: but Natalie kept on fighting. She wasn't passing out. And
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: so when this didn't work, they pulled out that heavy branch,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: their club, and they smashed Natalie in the face until
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: she went still. By the time it was all over,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the front of Natalie's van was splattered all over the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: place with blood. The killer scooped up that money pouch
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: off the road, and then they carried Natalie's body inside
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: to the back of the van, loaded her inside, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: then tossed the branch in with her. Then they took
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the keys to her van from her pockets, and then
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the killer climbed into the front seat and drove off,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: looking for somewhere remote where the body might go unnoticed.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: When they found a spot that looked pretty good, they
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: pulled over, they pulled her body out of the van,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and dumped it into a ditch off the side of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the road, and then threw some branches on top of it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: By the time the killer got back to the van,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: it was nearly 5 a.m. And so they hopped back
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in the van. They drove it a few miles down
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the road before they abandoned it. And so at that point,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: they just started the long walk back to the Rose Garden.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And this same person was there at the Rose Garden
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: when Mark, the longtime boyfriend, showed up saying that Natalie
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: was missing. And that's when the killer volunteered to go
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: help him look for her. It would turn out Natalie
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: was murdered by Patrice Chevalier, the Rose Garden's bartender. The
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: crucial clue came from Patrice's own girlfriend, who was the
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: woman Ferry had summoned to the police station for that
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: critical interview. The girlfriend had previously confirmed Patrice's alibi, but
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: when Ferry pressed her on it the second time she
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: was brought in to be spoken to, She admitted that
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Patrice had asked her to lie.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And she had.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And apparently Patrice had not asked her to lie after
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the murder had been committed.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: No.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Patrice called his girlfriend hours before he murdered Natalie and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: instructed her on exactly what to tell the police, which
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: proved that he had planned Natalie's murder ahead of time.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: After his girlfriend came clean, investigators searched Patrice's room at
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the Rose Garden and and they found a stash of
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: hidden cell phones. And on these phones were dozens and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: dozens of photos of Natalie that clearly had been taken
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: secretly of her, like from under tables and, you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: from behind her, clearly designed to try to capture, you know,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: images of her that were sort of risque. Patrice had
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: never been Natalie's lover. He'd been obsessed with her for years,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you know, secretly taking those photos of her and watching
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: her all the time. But his story about the two
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: of them having an affair had been a total fabrication. One,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: it was a story that was designed to cover up
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the fact that his DNA was found on the belt
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: used to bind her hands. But also one could assume
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that he was sort of living out this lie because
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: he still, even after killing her, even after basically being
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: caught for murder, was like pretending that he had this
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: real relationship with Natalie. And so maybe it gave him
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: some satisfaction to pretend. that they had had this affair because,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: you know, who's going to say otherwise? Natalie at this
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: point was dead. And so ultimately, Patrice Chevalier was convicted
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: you thought of today's episode in the comments.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: And remember, we have a whole playlist of true crime
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: So click here, and give them a watch. All right,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: until next time, see ya.