2023-07-16 17:00:00
Bédenac-Ouest area. Funny place for a meeting. Beyond Shell Station, a maze of pothole-stuffed walkways winds through scanty, dusty woodland. Here and there, canopies in the shape of tepees shelter picnic tables made of tired cement. A family of vacationers share the ham-butter-chips of circumstances. Cup of coffee in hand, a Polish driver observes his regulatory break before heading back to Spain. If it weren’t for the continuous roar of heavy goods vehicles endlessly speeding along the RN 10, it would almost be like being in the countryside.
During the day, bitumen eaters share the premises with perfect indifference. At night, another fauna haunts the woods. Furtive shadows, cars circling in the sand. If on the other side of the national road, Bédenac-Est sometimes welcomes prostitutes, Bédenac-Ouest is known to be a place of homosexual “open-air cruising”, listed as such on all the gay sites on the Internet. And this does not date from the invention of the Web.
deadly bullet
“The priest was killed by three bullets…
Bédenac-Ouest area. Funny place for a meeting. Beyond Shell Station, a maze of pothole-stuffed walkways winds through scanty, dusty woodland. Here and there, canopies in the shape of tepees shelter picnic tables made of tired cement. A family of vacationers share the ham-butter-chips of circumstances. Cup of coffee in hand, a Polish driver observes his regulatory break before heading back to Spain. If it weren’t for the continuous roar of heavy goods vehicles endlessly speeding along the RN 10, it would almost be like being in the countryside.
During the day, bitumen eaters share the premises with perfect indifference. At night, another fauna haunts the woods. Furtive shadows, cars circling in the sand. If on the other side of the national road, Bédenac-Est sometimes welcomes prostitutes, Bédenac-Ouest is known to be a place of homosexual “open-air cruising”, listed as such on all the gay sites on the Internet. And this does not date from the invention of the Web.
deadly bullet
“The priest was killed by three .22 long rifle bullets. In other words, the weapon of Mr. Everybody »
It is 7:20 a.m. on Wednesday, July 16, 1992. A couple of tourists and their two children alert the employee who has just taken up her shift at the Shell station: “There is a man lying in the parking lot toilets. No doubt he felt unwell, he is lying in his vomit. Then they leave, in a hurry to get back on the vacation route.
The toilet block occupies a cube of bricks along the central aisle. On the men’s side, a urinal area and a few cabins with walls tagged with porn graffiti, invitations to sex and mixed racist or homophobic messages. A man is indeed lying under the pissotières, his body slightly curled up, his left cheek once morest the cold tiles. It is not in his vomit that he bathes, it is in his blood. He has three red holes on his right side, one in the thigh, the other in the abdomen, the third in the head. The kind of discomfort you never recover from.
The gendarmes of Montlieu-la-Garde (17) are the first on the spot, joined by Claude Montillet, public prosecutor in Saintes. The victim has no papers on her. She will be quickly identified thanks to her car, a Renault 19, parked in the parking lot. This is Pierre Arizcorreta, 55 years old. Particular sign, it is a priest, the parish priest of Saint-Gervais, regarding thirty kilometers from Bédenac, in the north of Gironde.
The autopsy performed the same day will place the time of death between midnight and 2 am. Of the three shots, only the one to the head was fatal. .22 long rifle, in other words the weapon of Mr. Everyman. And sometimes also truckers, who take it into their cabin to protect themselves.
Incomprehension
The investigation is entrusted to the research section of the Poitiers gendarmerie. First under the authority of the prosecutor Montillet, then under that of the investigating judge of Saintes, Dominique Guiraud, following the opening of a judicial investigation a week later.
The emotion is strong in Saint-Gervais and in the three other parishes of Cubzagais, where Pierre Arizcorreta exercised his ministry. He is unanimously described as a good man, available, listening to others. But the misunderstanding is just as general. Among the parishioners of Father Arizcorreta, none can believe, does not want to believe, in a double life for the priest. It is however in this direction that the investigation will quickly turn. On the ground, the gendarmes do not have much to put in their mouths. The crime scene is silent, no material element and no exploitable samples. No conclusive testimonials either, which is rather surprising on a July night at a rest area that sees thousands of people pass by every day. Several dozen will be identified, heard, without the investigation progressing an inch.
“The facts have been time-barred since December 2006. The perpetrator(s) of the murder now fear nothing”
A heinous crime? Impossible, nothing was stolen from the victim. Random crimes? Unlikely, Pierre Arizcorreta was not there by chance. The investigators become certain that the priest had been having homosexual relations for many years, that he had already been to Bédenac and that is where the key to the enigma lies. It remains to find the author. By unwinding their meager ball, the gendarmes arrest a certain Jean-Pierre who is placed in police custody for the time of the necessary checks. This Bordelais met Father Arizcorreta at the very beginning of the 1970s in the toilets of the Saint-Jean station, another gay cruising spot, and the two men see each other regularly. But he has never been home and is unaware of his other relationships. And his alibi is concrete.
Sulfur smell
The death of the parish priest of Saint-Gervais smells of sulphur. Its very particular character undoubtedly did not facilitate the task of the gendarmes. Justice and the Church were suspected at the time of playing the omertà to stifle an affair which, curiously, did not know a great media repercussion. “The priest’s death remains unexplained”, headlined “Sud Ouest”, on August 13, 1992, a month following the events. Then nothing.
Two years later, the research section of Poitiers closes its investigation on a finding of failure. Undoubtedly the murder is the act of a truck driver or a passing motorist. In December 1996, it was the turn of the investigating judge to sign the dismissal order. Case closed. The ten-year limitation period ended in December 2006. Since then, the murderer or murderers of Father Arizcorreta no longer risk anything.
“What needed to be done has been done”
“I spent twenty-one years of my career as a judicial police officer, including twelve in the research section of the gendarmerie, in Poitiers. In 1992, I was head of the homicide group and it was in this capacity that I led the investigation into the murder of Father Arizcorreta. I arrived in Bédenac on the morning of the tragedy with a team of half- dozen investigators. What surprised me was the extent of this rest area. It covers several hectares. The other surprise is that the autopsy, performed the same day, placed the death between midnight and 2 a.m., while the murder was only reported around 7:30 a.m. Which means that people entered the toilets, obviously saw the body and said nothing. This long interval handicapped us. Perhaps the crime scene has been modified. Bad encounter We learn immediately that the Bédenac area is frequented at night by a population, let’s say, underworld. It is common knowledge that this is a gay meeting place. My first impression is that the priest had a bad encounter. According to the testimonies we collect, he had already been seen here. Nothing has been stolen from him, he still wears his watch and his gold cross. He has a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes in his pocket. The victim’s face is bruised. She was beaten before being shot. The body bears three bullet holes. But we do not find casings on the spot or around. Sweeping yields no exploitable results, any more than fingerprinting, which is not surprising in such a transient place. In a homicide, the first hours and the first days are decisive. Here, at the end of the eight days of the investigation in flagrante delicto, we have nothing. Nothing at all. No element which makes it possible to direct the research. The regulars of Bédenac are identified following hideouts, at night, and questioned. Ditto for all those who paid by credit card at the Shell station. Nobody saw anything, heard anything. The only testimony, that of a driver who slept in the parking lot that night. He says he heard four sharp knocks shortly following midnight. But he was in a half-sleep, he is not sure of the time, does not know if it might be gunshots… In two years of investigation, we have overlooked nothing. We searched the home of Father Arizcorreta in Saint-Gervais, heard his relatives and his family, interviewed some 250 people, checked all the information that reached us, even the most fanciful, such as these calls from dowsers or these anonymous phone calls. We traced all the stages of his life, from the seminary for late vocations in Gauriac (33), in 1963 at the age of 27, to his arrival in Saint-Gervais, passing through the major seminary of Bordeaux. We went through his bank account, his directories, his private documents. We even explored the Basque track, on the off chance. In vain. The priest enjoyed an excellent reputation, but he was a discreet, even secretive man. Everyone was unaware of his private life. The click In this kind of case, we always hope for the click, the new element that will get you out of the impasse. Here, we are still waiting. My conviction is that Father Arizcorreta was the victim of a homophobic aggression, organized or, more surely, spontaneous. No doubt the murder was committed by someone passing through. of regret. But I sometimes think that with the progress of scientific police and the effectiveness of genetic analyses, such a murder, today, might perhaps be solved. »
“A tolerant and rigorous man”
” It is a disaster. We won’t find one like that. The day following the death of Pierre Arizcorreta, the testimonies of his parishioners poured in, drawing the portrait of a priest very close to his flock. In Saint-Gervais, where he resided, as in Saint-Laurent-d’Arce, Virsac and Peujard, the three other parishes he served, the tribute is unanimous. “In a short time, Father Arizcorreta was able to make himself appreciated by everyone,” underlined Father Xavier Destizon, senior parish priest of Saint-André-de-Cubzac, and his deputy, Father Joseph. He had a certain taste for solitude, retirement, but at the same time he was very close to people. And he liked to receive. During parish days, he did the cooking himself. “Pierre Arizcorreta had a reputation as a “tolerant man”, but also “rigorous” in the exercise of his priesthood and the quality of the ceremonies over which he presided. Then mayor of Saint-Gervais, Jacques Prud’homme immediately went to Bédenac in the company of his first deputy: “He was a very friendly, courteous man, whom I invited to dinner at my house. He had been able to forge strong relationships with the inhabitants, including those who did not go to church. “Father Arizcorreta’s funeral was celebrated on January 22 in the church of Saint-Gervais, in the presence of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Mgr Eyt, and a moved crowd.
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