Murder of Montigny-lès-Metz: Henri Leclaire exonerated – The Point

Henry Leclaire is ultimately not returned before the assizes in the murder of two little boys in Montigny-lès-Metz (Moselle) and killer Francis Heaulme series thus end up alone in the dock, announced Thursday his lawyer. On appeal, the investigating chamber has waived return before the assizes former handler 67, whose name has continued to resurface in the murder of two boys 8 years back in 1986 this town on the outskirts of Metz. “The exonerated Henry Leclaire is total”, that is for him “the end of a long ordeal”, welcomed his lawyer, Thomas Hellenbrand.

He had appealed a first decision on April 20, investigating judges who, against the advice of parquet, decided to send Henri Leclaire with Francis Heaulme before the foundation of Moselle. Henri Leclaire was the first to confess the 1986 murder of Alexander Beckrich and Cyril Beining, 8, dead skull down with stones on a railway embankment on which they played in Montigny-lès-Metz. But he was quickly retracted.

Investigators had bleached falling inaccuracies in his statements. A reconstruction was also leaning in his favor, the police saying that his girth prevented him from climbing the slope. A few months later, a 16 year old, Patrick Dils, was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. First miner to be assessed a penalty as he was in 2001, one of the few French prisoners to benefit from a revision procedure, which resulted in his acquittal.

Leclaire bloodied?

the presence of the serial killer Francis Heaulme near the crime scene on the day of the murder, on 28 September 1986 was a key element of this acknowledgment. But when he heard about the case, the “backpacker Crime” – which never confessed this one – has challenged Henry Leclaire: he would have seen, bloody, near the scene of the crime that same September 28, 1986. These charges were not enough to incriminate Henri Leclaire, who received a dismissal. And Francis Heaulme finally appeared only on March 31, 2014, before the foundation of the Moselle.

But the trial was adjourned on the second day of the hearing, after testimony last minute incriminating again Henri Leclaire. There was that of a woman in front of which he would have raised the matter Montigny after he delivered his races, saying he “caught” the children, but not killing them. And the story of a railroad worker, who remembered seeing a man “like 90%,” Henry Leclaire, bloody clothes, the day of the murders.

A “fiction”

Already convicted seven times for nine murders, including twice to life, Francis Heaulme was at the hearing reiterated his accusations against Henry Leclaire, supporting have seen coming down the slope running, blood clothing. Would the two men have committed the crime together? The investigating chamber said on Thursday that it was only a hypothesis “journalistic” and did not “decide on a fiction,” the lawyers reported after the hearing.

the evidence that led to the suspension of the trial and a new indictment of Henry Leclaire are only “grand Guignol of testimonies of some serious people who came for two years muddy the waters, hurting the families of victims, “commented Thursday me Hellenbrand. The decision not to refer Henri Leclaire before the foundation is good news “for him, because a trial would have been a physical test. But what is unfortunate is that it has lost one and a half families, “added the lawyer.