Jacqueline Jacob Questioned in Renewed Investigation of Grégory Villemin Threats

On October 24, 2025, Jacqueline Jacob, the 81-year-old great-aunt of Grégory Villemin, was interrogated by the Court of Appeal in Dijon, as part of the ongoing investigation into threatening letters sent to the Villemin family over several decades. Jacob is suspected of being one of the "corbeaux" — or anonymous letter writers — who sent menacing notes including explicit threats like "I will get you." Stylometric and graphological expertises have attributed some of these letters to her.

This questioning follows her initial 2017 indictment for "abduction and sequestration followed by death," a charge later dismissed in 2018 on a procedural technicality. The new inquiry is driven by fresh evidence, notably the testimony of Jacob's brother-in-law, who reportedly identified her voice on a recording linked to the case, raising the possibility of criminal conspiracy charges.

Despite these suspicions, Jacob's defense, led by lawyer Frédéric Berna, challenges the scientific reliability of the handwriting and linguistic analyses, dismissing the allegations as "lunatic." The public prosecutor of Dijon, Philippe Astruc, also remarked that current evidence does not clearly justify formal charges, underscoring the complexity of this long-standing and bitter family feud. Grégory Villemin was found drowned in 1984 at age four, and the case remains one of France's most notorious unsolved legal mysteries.