The Dominici affair : murder and mystery in Provence / Martin Kitchen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kitchen, Martin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dominici, Gaston.

Drummond, J. C. (Jack C.).

Drummond, J. C.

Murder--France--Lurs--Case studies.

Murder.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (259 pages)

Place of Publication:

Lincoln, Nebraska : Potomac Books, 2017.

Summary:

The spectacular murders of a distinguished British scientist, his wife, and their young daughter in the depths of rural France in 1952 prompted one of the most notorious criminal investigations in postwar Europe. It is still a matter of passionate debate in France. Sir Jack Drummond, with his wife, Lady Anne, and their ten-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, were on holiday on the French Riviera when they stopped to make camp just off the road near a farm called La Grand' Terre in Provence. The family was found murdered the next morning. More than two years later, thebarely literate, seventy-five-year-old proprietor of La Grand' Terre, Gaston Dominici, was brought to trial, convicted, and condemned to death by guillotine. When Dominici was convicted, there was general agreement that the ignorant, pitiless, and depraved old peasant had gotten what he deserved. At the time, he stood for everything backward and brutish about a peasantry left behind in the wake of France's postwar transformation and burgeoning prosperity. But with time perspectives changed. Subsequent inquiries coupled with widespread doubts and misgivings prompted President de Gaulle to order his release from prison in 1960, and by the 1980s many in France came to believe-against all evidence-that Gaston Dominici was innocent. He had become a romanticized symbol of a simpler, genuine, and somehow more honest life from a bygone era. Reconstructing the facts of theDrummond murders, The Dominici Affair redefines one of France's most puzzling crimesand illustrates the profound changes in French society that took place following the Second World War.

Contents:

A fatal journey

The murder

The police investigation

Gaston denounced

Confession

Two lives

Gaston Dominici awaits his trial

The trial: the first phase

Gaston Dominici found guilty

The Chenevier enquiry

The case is closed

Reception.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781612349886

1612349889

9781612349909

1612349900