Word: leroy
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...enough, with police looking for a "tall, strongly built man wearing a turtle neck" who had been seen with the girl the day before she died. But then one witness claimed that she had seen a wealthy Bruay notary (in France, a kind of real-estate lawyer) named Pierre Leroy parking his car near the empty lot at approximately the time police believe Brigitte was murdered...
...Where were you between 7:45 and 8:30 on the night of April 5?" demanded Investigating Magistrate Henri Pascal more than a week later. Like many other townspeople who were questioned after the murder, Leroy could not remember. In fact, his testimony was waffling and contradictory. Acting on his "strong personal conviction," Pascal promptly jailed Leroy on a murder charge...
...people of Bruay were quite happy to have Leroy singled out as the assassin, since he had several strikes against him. He was a wealthy bourgeois in a poor socialist town. He was a bachelor of 37, and there were whispered rumors that he frequented prostitutes in Lille and was having an affair with a married woman. Worst of all, he was the legal representative of local coal bosses who had closed down many of the mines and thrown hundreds of Bruay men out of work...
...Leroy's fate was sealed, it seemed, when a Bruay youth named Jean-Pierre, who was with the group that had originally discovered Brigitte's body, testified that he had seen a bald, corpulent man behind the wheel of a white Citroën near the empty lot at the hour of the crime. When it turned out that Leroy, who is partially bald and stocky, owned a white Peugeot, Jean-Pierre decided that the Citroën really was a Peugeot after...
Despite the less than solid evidence and Leroy's protestations of innocence, Judge Pascal refused to release the notary on bail. Ultra-leftists subsequently formed an action committee to support Pascal's tough stand, contending that the case represented "the people's struggle against the bourgeoisie." As the trial became political, it rapidly outgrew Bruay. Pro-and anti-Leroy rallies were held in many cities of northern France. Even Jean-Paul Sartre got into the act. An article in his far-left newspaper, La Cause du Peuple, quoted Bruay miners, who demanded: "Give [Leroy...