Christian Ranucci

Christian Ranucci (born April 6, 1954 in Avignon , † July 28, 1976 in Marseille ) was the third from last person to be executed in France and throughout Western Europe. Serious doubts about his guilt keep the case in the public interest to this day.

Murder Case and Investigation

Eight-year-old Marie-Dolorès Rambla was kidnapped on June 3, 1974 at 10:50 am in Marseille. A man had lured her into his car on the pretext that he was looking for his runaway dog. At 12:15 p.m. near Marseille, the previously innocent 20-year-old sales representative Christian Ranucci hit the road with his Peugeot 304 Coupé after an accident with sheet metal damage. A married couple, witnesses to the accident, pursued him. According to the statement they made to the police the following day, they saw the driver of the car stop near a mushroom grower, get out of the car and get “a rather large package” (“un paquet assez volumineux”) from the vehicle. In the afternoon of the day, Ranucci apparently stayed for several hours on the premises of the farm, where he supposedly wanted to have a picnic . Employees could clearly identify him and his vehicle. On the afternoon of June 5, police found the girl stabbed 15 times near the mushroom growing facility. There was no evidence of a sexual offense. Less than an hour later, Christian Ranucci was arrested as a suspect in Nice , where he was staying with his mother.

After 15 hours of non-stop interrogation that lasted all night, he first made a confession to the criminal police on June 6 , which he repeated before the investigating judge. He also gave an exact location where he had hidden the murder weapon, a knife, under a thin layer of soil. After almost two hours of searching with metal detectors, the police found a knife, together with a frying pan and some empty cans, not exactly there, but near the named place under a large pile of dung. On June 7th, Ranucci admitted that this knife was his property and that he had committed the murder with it - although the actual location of the knife differed from the statement originally made. The criminal police subsequently failed to investigate whether this knife could actually be used as a tool.

Ranucci later retracted his confession, claiming it was the result of pressure from police officers and his exhaustion after hours of interrogation. Regarding the date of the day, he could not remember anything.

On June 6, the couple who had made the statement about the accident escape could not identify Ranucci in a confrontation with several men. Only when he was introduced to them alone did they say they recognized him. On that day, they also changed their original statement considerably: Instead of the “big package”, it was allegedly a child speaking in a soft voice with whom Ranucci got out of the car and went into the forest. They also later claimed that they had never said anything else, even though the original statement (“un paquet assez volumineux”) was demonstrably given to the police on June 4th for written record. According to the couple, the child got out on the passenger side. However, this was not possible because Ranucci's passenger door was so damaged by the accident that it could not be opened.

Blood-streaked pants were found in Ranucci's car. He said it was his own blood from a motorcycle accident a few days earlier. The blood could also have come from Marie-Dolorès Rambla, since he and the girl had the same blood type. A DNA analysis was not possible at the time.

Trial and Execution

On March 9, 1976, the trial against Christian Ranucci began before the jury of the Bouches-du-Rhône department in Aix-en-Provence . Just one day later, on March 10, Ranucci was found guilty of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to death . His request for an appeal was rejected on July 17, 1976 by the Court of Cassation in Paris . On the same day, he made a pardon to President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing . During a visit by his lawyers to the president on July 27, the latter stated that the pardon had been rejected. The president followed the court and found Ranucci unequivocally convicted. This made Giscard d'Estaing the last democratically elected President of Europe to consent to the execution of a minor at the time of the crime , since Ranucci was under 21 at the time of the crime, and thus a minor under French law at the time; The age of majority was reduced to 18 years only one month after the act, on July 5, 1974 ( Loi n ° 74-631 du 5 juillet 1974 fixant à dix-huit ans l'âge de la majorité. Version consolidée au 07 juillet 1974 ). Already about twelve hours later, on July 28, 1976 at 4:13 am, Christian Ranucci was in prison Les Baumettes in Marseille of executioner André Obrecht with the guillotine beheaded . According to statements by his defense lawyers who were present as witnesses at the execution , Ranucci's last words were addressed to the lawyers: “Réhabilitez-moi” (“Rehabilitate me!”). According to another eyewitness, however, Ranucci is said to have said nothing at all after the clergyman who was present asked to speak his last word.

After Ranucci, only two people were executed in France, Jerôme Carrein in June 1977 and Hamida Djandoubi in September 1977. The death penalty was abolished in France in October 1981 on the initiative of the new President François Mitterrand .

Doubts about Ranucci's guilt

The investigation of the Marie-Dolorès Rambla case is considered by some authors (including Perrault, Le Forsonney, Osswald; see bibliography) to be inadequate according to today's criminalistic principles.

The court based its verdict on the couple's testimony, Ranucci's later revoked confession and the knife that was found. In addition, the blood-smeared pants found in his car were another clue. However, as already explained above, all of these indicators are fraught with problems.

There are also other inconsistencies: The kidnapping of Marie-Dolorès Rambla was observed by two eyewitnesses. The victim's six-year-old brother later stated that Christian Ranucci was not the kidnapper. He described the perpetrator's car as a gray "Simca Chrysler". The second witness, a car mechanic, was able to clearly identify the vehicle as a gray Simca 1100 . He described the driver as about 30 years old and much taller and of a much stronger stature than Ranucci. On May 31 and June 1, 1974, four other witnesses had seen independently how the driver of a gray Simca 1100, wearing a red sweater, had spoken to several children in Marseille. They declared unanimously that it was not Ranucci. In addition, the man had been seen by a fifth witness speaking to children at a time when Ranucci was already in custody. However, that statement was only made after the trial. Christian Ranucci also didn't own a gray Simca 1100, but a gray Peugeot 304 Coupé. Both vehicles are similar in shape to some extent. Skeptics object that the couple who appeared as the main witnesses to the crime may not have been watching Ranucci's car but someone else - not least because of the fact that the passenger door of Ranucci's Peugeot could not be opened.

On June 5, on the premises of the mushroom growing business where Ranucci was staying on the afternoon of June 3, 1974, police officers found a red men's sweater that had been badly weathered by Marie-Dolorès Rambla and a police dog belonging to the one near the farm lying corpse. The sweater was much too big for the rather small and skinny Ranucci and his mother confirmed that he had never owned a red sweater. The item of clothing could have more closely matched the stature of the alleged Simca driver wearing a red sweater described by the witnesses. However, the court considered it proven that the sweater belonged to Ranucci.

Shortly before the trial began on March 9, 1976, another case of kidnapping and murder of a child had aroused the French public. A majority of the French vehemently called for the death penalty for such offenders. According to Gilles Perrault and other authors, the “popular anger” that was boiling over these days could have spread to the jury in Aix-en-Provence, so that the death sentence was passed on the second day of the trial, despite the inconsistencies in the evidence. The other case mentioned also went down in French judicial history, with the opposite sign: Contrary to public expectations, the clearly guilty perpetrator Patrick Henry did not die in January 1977 due to the pleading of his defense lawyer, the prominent lawyer and death penalty opponent Robert Badinter but sentenced to life imprisonment.

In summary, it can be said that on the one hand there are some indications that speak for Ranucci as the perpetrator. Added to this is the fact that he was unable to produce an alibi for the time of the kidnapping or the alleged time of the killing and that he had been in the immediate vicinity of the place where the body was found for several hours on the day of the crime. He also made himself suspicious through strange behavior (repeated confession, alleged recognition of the crime knife, later the vague statement that he could not remember anything). On the other hand, the numerous inconsistencies also raise considerable doubts about the verifiability of Ranucci's perpetrator. According to the facts available so far, it must remain unclear whether the judgment hit the real perpetrator or whether an innocent person was executed due to a chain of numerous unfortunate circumstances.

Media reception of the case

More than ten books have appeared on the Ranucci case, and his mother Héloïse Mathon edited her correspondence with her imprisoned son. On the 30th anniversary of the execution, his lawyer Jean-François Le Forsonney published a monograph on the aftermath of the case. While Gilles Perrault and Karin Osswald argue that, on the basis of the evidence, Ranucci should not have been convicted, Mathieu Fratacci, one of the police officers involved in the investigation, and Gérard Bouladou, retired senior detective, defend the verdict. In his book Le cirque rouge , published in 2008, Pierre Rambla, the father of the murdered girl, sees doubts about Ranucci's guilt as a campaign by socialist opponents of the death penalty.

The plot of two films, a 1979 feature film (based on Perrault's book) and a 2006 television film, are based on the Ranucci case.

In early 2006, journalists claimed that the future serial killer Michel Fourniret was said to have been a spectator at the trial of Ranucci in March 1976. Media reports about it caused a sensation in the French public and gave rise to speculation about a possible perpetrator or involvement of Fourniret. However, it could not be proven beyond any doubt that the trial observer was actually Fourniret.

In 2002, four political science students founded the Ranucci affair: Pourquoi réviser? with the aim to posthumously enable Christian Ranucci a fair revision process.

Movies

• The red sweater (original title: Le Pull-over rouge ), feature film France 1979, director: Michel Drach, based on the book of the same name by Gilles Perrault. First TV broadcast in German April 1, 1983 TV of the GDR , October 1, 1984 ZDF
• Only death knows the truth (Original title: L'Affaire Christian Ranucci: Le combat d'une mère ), TV movie Belgium / France 2006, director: Denys Granier-Deferre. First broadcast on TV January 24, 2007 RTL TVI (Belgium / Luxembourg), January 29, 2007 TF1 (France), first broadcast in German October 14, 2008 Bavarian TV

literature

• Gilles Perrault : Le Pull-over rouge. Ramsay, Paris 1978. ISBN 2-85956-072-6
• Christian Ranucci / Héloïse Mathon: Jusqu'au 28 June 1976. Écrits d'un condamné. [Correspondence]. Hachette, Paris 1980. ISBN 2-01-007230-8
• Maurice Périsset: L'énigme Christian Ranucci. Fleuve noir , Paris 1994. ISBN 2-265-00121-X (novel)
• Karin Osswald: L'affaire Ranucci. J'ai lu, Paris 1994. ISBN 2-277-07077-7
• Mathieu Fratacci: Qui a tué Christian Ranucci? Editions n ° 1, Paris 1994. ISBN 2-86391-605-X
• Gilles Perrault, Héloïse Mathon [and a.]: Christian Ranucci. Vingt ans après. Julliard, Paris 1995. ISBN 2-260-01091-1
• Gérard Bouladou: L'affaire du pull-over rouge, Ranucci coupable! France Europe Éditions, 2005. ISBN 2-84825-097-6
• Jean-François Le Forsonney: Le Fantôme de Ranucci. Ce jeun condamné qui me hante Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine 2006. ISBN 2-7499-0561-3
• Gérard Bouladou: Autopsy d'une imposture. L'affaire Ranucci. Pascal Petiot, Paris 2006. ISBN 2-84814-034-8
• Gilles Perrault: L'ombre de Christian Ranucci. Fayard , Paris 2006. ISBN 2-213-62887-4
• Balbino Katz: Ranucci le monstre angélique. Seznec un meurtrier sans aveu. La vérité, enfin? Editions Dualpha, Coulommiers 2007. ISBN 2-35374-044-8
• Pierre Rambla: Le "Cirque" Rouge ou Le mensonge mediatique et l'argent du sang Société des Écrivains, Paris 2008. ISBN 2-7480-3820-7
• Yann Le Meur: Le Sang et l'Encre. Et si Christian Ranucci était innocent? L'Harmattan, Paris 2013. ISBN 2-343-00604-0
• Geneviève Donadini: Le procès Ranucci. Témoignage d'un juré d'assises , L'Harmattan, Paris 2016. ISBN 978-2-343-10540-6
• Jean-Louis Vincent: Ranucci affair. Du doute à la vérité , François Bourin, Paris 2018. ISBN 979-1-025-20397-2

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gilles Perrault In: associationranucci.org , accessed February 15, 2009.
2. ↑ Karin Osswald In: associationranucci.org , accessed February 15, 2009.
3. ↑ Mathieu Fratacci In: associationranucci.org , Accessed February 15, 2009.
4. ↑ Gérard Bouladou In: justice-affairescriminelles.org .
5. ^ Pierre Rambla: Le Cirque Rouge ( Memento of March 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Accessed February 15, 2009.
6. ^ Fourniret présent au procès Ranucci? ( Memento from June 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ Michel Fourniret aurait assisté au procès Ranucci, selon "La Provence" ( Memento from June 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ La piste Fourniret surgit dans l'affaire Ranucci ( Memento of May 3, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

• Dossier Ranucci (French, extensive collection of facts on the case)
• Shorter presentation of the case (French)
• Page of the Ranucci affair: Pourquoi réviser? (French, with a summary in German)