Crimes enquêtes et investigations · Engle

Podcast / De sang froid - Rencontre avec Laetitia Sariroglou une journaliste qui a suivit l’enquête sur la disparition mystérieuse du petit Mathieu Haubert en 1983.

·49 min·4 clips

Logier said 'pour le minot, je vais tout vous dire' — then the commanding officer burst in and he never spoke again.

1. 'Crimes Enquêtes et Investigations' presents journalist Laetitia Sariro-Glou discussing her investigation into the 1983 disappearance of 10-year-old Mathieu Holbert near Castellane, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. 2. Sariro-Glou is a judicial affairs journalist at La Provence who spent years investigating the Holbert case and published the book 'Disparu en chemin' with the family's cooperation. 3. The episode's core question is why, after more than 40 years, no one has been convicted for the disappearance of a child who vanished on a frequented road 750 metres short of his destination. 4. On 25 June 1983 at 14h30, Mathieu Holbert set off alone from Péroule on his bicycle toward shepherd Ricard's farm, having promised his parents he could manage the 3-kilometre Route Napoléon trip alone. 5. The transhumance trip had been moved from Sunday to Saturday due to weather, and shepherd Ricard was not warned Mathieu was coming, meaning no one noticed the boy's absence for hours. 6. Four witnesses saw Mathieu on his route: the sons of a neighbour, the innkeeper's son, a woman named Marie-Claude who offered to accompany him, and one final motorist near Col de l'Uens — after which no one reported seeing him. 7. The initial Castellane brigade of four gendarmes had limited resources; a tracker dog arrived at 2 a.m. but lost the scent near Col de l'Uens, consistent with the child having been taken by a vehicle. 8. The Dignes brigade, which took over ten days after the disappearance, had no prior training in missing-children cases and quickly leaned toward classifying the case as a runaway, partly for economic reasons. 9. The Holbert family — Parisian former IT professionals who had settled in Péroule to farm without electricity or running water — were stigmatised by local residents and treated as outsiders by investigators who questioned whether Mathieu had run away from impoverished conditions. 10. Gendarme questioning of Lise Holbert included asking whether Mathieu was a wanted child and whether she had ever had an abortion — questions Sariro-Glou describes as shocking when she later read the transcripts. 11. On 10 July 1983, a phone call to the family home produced a voice saying 'Allô, c'est Mathieu' before hanging up; some family members believed it was Mathieu's voice, but the father did not, and the clip was too short to match against a Christmas cassette recording. 12. A false sighting on 22 July 1983 by two chocolate-shop workers in Cannes temporarily diverted the investigation; a vague photofit of an accompanying man produced nothing. 13. The near-bankrupt family paid radiesthésiste Crozier over 700 francs by telephone; Crozier told them Mathieu was dead and in water, then refused to come in person claiming to be overworked. 14. Georges Logier — a seasonal cook and lifelong bachelor from Péroule whose family had lived there for generations — was a regular visitor to the Holbert household and was the first person to arrive asking 'il est où le minot?' the evening of the disappearance. 15. Logier's alibi — that he had been playing pétanque with Christian Maréchal all afternoon — was backed by Maréchal and by an elderly villager named Augusta, but Logier's blue DS was reported seen in two locations simultaneously. 16. In 1988 the Section de Recherche d'Aix-en-Provence reopened the case; when re-interviewed, Maréchal admitted no one had played pétanque in 40-degree heat and that Logier had left around 14h00-14h30 without explanation. 17. Physical evidence found in Logier's car included a bloodstained child's overall (not identified as Mathieu's), a small piece of pink cloth consistent with Mathieu's thumb bandage, and blonde hairs matching Mathieu's profile at above 30 per cent certainty by the era's standards. 18. During the 1988 garde-à-vue, Logier began to say 'pour le minot, je vais tout vous dire' before the section commander burst into the room and applied pressure, causing Logier to permanently stop speaking; this exchange was not entered into the official transcript. 19. The episode has a measured, interview-format tone in which the host asks precise chronological questions and Sariro-Glou delivers detailed, sourced answers drawn from her book research and direct interviews with investigators and the Holbert family. 20. Listeners interested in cold-case journalism, French criminal procedure, or rural disappearance investigations will find the episode substantive; those expecting resolution or a confirmed perpetrator will not find one.

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