Cindi Cook
October 02, 2021•Update: October 02, 2021
PARIS
A former French gendarme who committed suicide earlier this week, left a note admitting to serial killings that have perplexed police for three-and-a-half decades.
Francois Verove, 59, took his life on Wednesday, according to French news outlet franceinfo.
Police found his body in a rented apartment in Grau-du-Roi, adjacent to La Grande-Motte where he lived with his family. He left DNA evidence along with the suicide note that confirmed his guilt.
Verove was recently summoned by police for questioning in five major rape and murder cases that had eluded police for more than 35 years.
His crimes involved brutal killings and rapes of teen and pre-teen girls in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of his victims were as young as 11.
Verove’s crimes also included attempted murder, armed robbery and kidnapping.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau read a statement late Thursday identifying the deceased.
Verove’s wife reported him missing on Sept. 27. French newspaper Le Parisien also reported that the accused emptied his bank accounts days before his death.
“DNA tests, which were immediately ordered by the investigating magistrate, established a match between the genetic profile found at several crime scenes and that of the dead man,” said Beccuau, according to French news outlet France24.
Verove had been a gendarme and motorcyclist in the Republican Guard in the Ile-de-France from 1983 to 1988, followed by stints in motorcycle brigades in the Buche-du-Rhone and Montpellier.
After a leg injury in 2011, Verove retired. From 2014 to 2019, he sat on the municipal council of Prades-le-Lez.
The “cold case” investigation, ongoing since the murders took place, had been re-launched in recent years with the investigating magistrate in the case calling on 750 gendarmes in the Paris region in relation to the murders. Verove was one of the gendarmes who had received a summons Sept. 24 for questioning five days later.
Verove had been dubbed the “killer with the pockmarked face” after the murder of 11-year-old Cecile Bloch. The murder happened in the basement of her apartment building in Paris’s 19th arrondissement.
The lawyer for the Bloch family, Didier Seban, told franceinfo that Verove’s suicide brings on a certain amount of relief.
“There is at the same time a kind of satisfaction, because for families, not to know is to imagine that one can meet him again at any time,” said Seban.
