A French serial killer and paedophile appeared on a popular television quiz show, despite being pursued by police in connection with a raft of rapes and murders of adults and children.
François Vérove, a retired police officer, was a contestant on the show Tout le monde veut prendre sa place (Everyone Wants to Take His Place) in 2019. Two years later he took his own life as the net closed around him.
During his TV appearance Vérove appeared laid back as he chatted to Nagui Fam, a French host and household name. He answered general knowledge questions in front of a clapping studio audience.
French news magazine Marianne made the disclosure and the news is seen as evidence that Vérove, who lived with his wife and two children in La Grande-Motte in the south of the country, made no attempt to disguise his identity.
It has raised questions as to why detectives took so long to catch him, despite having his description and a suspicion he was a police officer.
Prior to committing suicide, the 59-year-old Vérove, left a note in the flat where he took a fatal dose of medicine in 2021. The note told his widow that he had “carried a mad rage that made of me a criminal”.
The note went on: “There were times when I couldn’t stand it and I had to destroy, sully, kill someone innocent.”
A DNA sample confirmed that Vérove was the killer of 11-year-old Cécile Bloch – an 11-year-old that was found dead in Paris in 1986.
His other victims included Gilles Politi, a 38-year-old aviation technician, and 20-year-old German au pair Irmgard Müller, both of whom were killed in the French capital in 1987.
The sick killer Vérove is known to have raped at least two other children and is suspected of committing as many as 31 murders and rapes up until 1994.
During investigations, he was known as Le Grêlé (The Pockmarked Man) on account of his acne-riddled face. However, his identity remained a mystery.
Vérove’s widow, who has not been named, told author Patricia Tourancheau – who wrote Le Grêlé: Le tueur était un flic (The Pockmarked Man: The Killer Was a Cop) – that she never suspected her husband as the cold-blooded killer.
In her mind, her husband was an upstanding member of the community, an ex-cop and local councillor.
She told the author that Vérove had made no attempt to conceal his identity, including when he went on the TV quiz show, broadcast on France 2, the state broadcaster.
