All language subtitles for Gaston Dominici and the Drummond Murders ¦ Great Crimes and Trials of the Twentieth Century (480p_30fps_H264-128kbit_AAC)

By 1952, the nuclear race was underway.

The Soviet Union had exploded its first atom bomb and the United States had replied with

a hydrogen device.

The world was learning to live with the Cold War.

A new era also began in Great Britain as Princess Elizabeth returned from Kenya as Queen following

the death of her father.

In France there were the death throes of the old order as attempts to maintain control

over Indo-China brought savage fighting.

Nevertheless the country was recovering its self-confidence after the Second World War.

That summer the beaches were packed with holiday makers and the tourists were flocking again

to the country's leading results.

Even the British despite exchange controls were crossing the channel in increasing numbers.

And the more adventurous ones were driving across France to the sun.

Early in the morning of the 5th of August 1952 police were called to a farm near the

village of Luar where shots had been heard and bodies found.

The village is north of D. Deep in the harsh and lonely countryside of Oat Provence.

When the Jean-Dames reached the farmhouse, Grand Tere they were confronted with the

bodies of an English family which had been camping nearby.

They were 61 year old Sir Jack Drummond, his wife Anne and their daughter Elizabeth.

They had stopped their human station wagon to camp by the edge of the Rutanasional 96.

Lady Drummond's body was in night clothes lying next to the car half covered by a travelling

rug.

The body of her husband was on the other side of the road.

He was dressed and wearing gym shoes.

The body of their daughter was some way away on the far side of a railway track near the

banks of the River Duance.

Anne Drummond had been shot three times near the hut.

Outside her were a camp bed, an electric lamp and an English noft.

Her husband had also been shot in the chest but he had another gunshot wound in the hand.

Elizabeth had been clubbed to death with a heavy blunt instrument, apparently while

fleeing from her attacker.

The nearby farmhouse of Grand Tere was owned by 75 year old Gaston Dominichi.

He farmed the fields around the murder site and kept goats with his wife Marie.

Their second son Gustav and his wife Yvette lived with them and helped to run the small

holding.

It was Gustav who had discovered the bodies shortly before 5 in the morning and flagged

down a passing motorcyclist to go and fetch the local police.

A first search of the car identified the victims and help was called for.

The nearest police criminal investigation department to Dean is Nice but this was understaffed

and passed the request to Marseille.

Thus it was not until five in the afternoon that Superintendent Edmond Sebay arrived to

take charge.

By then the murder scene had been overrun by sightseers and local journalists.

The area had been well trampled and the car ran south.

Elizabeth's body had been examined by the local doctor Dr. Dragong.

Aware that she was some 200 yards from the car where she had been sleeping he told Sebay

of the surprising fact that her bare feet were clean and had not been cut.

The police had found four spent cartridges and two unused ones near the car.

Then part of the stock of a gun was seen in the river near where Elizabeth's body had

been found.

The rest of the gun was soon retrieved from the river.

It was a US Army Rockola Carbine almost certainly a trophy acquired from an American soldier

during the liberation of the south of France.

The gun was handed around and never tested for fingerprints.

Gustave Dominici admitted that he had heard gunshots at about one in the morning but had

been frightened to investigate.

He had got up at about five o'clock and set off to investigate some damage caused to

the railway embankment by irrigation the Dominici's had been carrying out the previous day.

The path to the landslide took him close to the car but surprisingly he had not checked

whether the occupants were all right.

Only when he neared the railway bridge did he see Elizabeth.

A little later he found the bodies of her parents and flagged down the motorcyclist.

The bodies had been removed for detailed examination before Sebay arrived but Dr. Dragong told

him that since Rigor Mortis had not yet set in Elizabeth had probably died up to three

hours after her parents.

Other doctors were to claim this could have been caused by her smaller size and that she

could have been killed at the same time.

The police had also started questioning local residents and passing motorists to build up

a picture of the murdered family and their last movements.

Jack Drummond was a distinguished scientist who had taught biochemistry at London University

before the Second World War.

During the war he had worked for the Ministry of Food with his wife he had written a book

The Englishman's Food on how to make wartime rations more palatable.

It also developed a nutritious broth which Londoners were to come to know well during

Leblitz.

After the war Drummond was knighted for his work and received an honorary degree for his

contribution to science.

The family had driven to the south of France camping on the way to stay with friends near

Ville Harsh about 80 miles from DiNia.

The Drummond had gone to DiNia on the 4th of August to see a charlatade, the local version

of a bullfight in which the bull is not killed.

They had apparently stayed longer than intended and been forced to set up camp at the somewhat

lonely spot sandwiched between the main road and the railway line.

Gaston Dominici said that he had seen them during the evening as he was bringing in his

flocks.

This was agreed by his son Gustave who saw them preparing for bed.

Both men mentioned that a motorcyclist had driven up to the farm at about 11 in the evening

and called out in a foreign language and no one replied he had driven away.

The farm also admitted to having heard gunshots at about one in the morning but assumed that

they were fired by poachers.

The 4th had been a busy day for the Dominici's but it was their turn for the Arosage when

they could water their fields.

Neighbors had come to celebrate but the police did not feel it necessary to find out exactly

who had been around that evening or to interview them.

Nauded they examined a pair of trousers found hanging in the farmyard after the murders.

Both Gaston and Gustave denied owning them.

Nevertheless the police inquiry concentrated on the Dominici's since the bay felt that

there were too many inconsistencies in the stories they told.

It was strange that Elizabeth's was the first party to be found since it was not on the

direct path from the farmhouse to the fields.

He was surprised that while Gustave had been too frightened to investigate the gunshots

at night he had not bothered to see if the campers were all right the next morning.

Attempts to find who owned the vital US carbine got nowhere although Sebe was convinced it

was someone local.

The detective was an outsider who did not speak the local dialect and he soon found

himself confronted by what seemed a wall of peasant silence.

The Dominici's clammed up giving evasive answers to all queries.

Nevertheless from other sources the police were swamped with sightings.

The lorry driver saw a tall thick set man loitering near the drumman's car shortly after

midnight.

About an hour and a half later two other drivers reported seeing figures moving round the campsite.

Two newspapers the British Sunday Dispatch and the French Samdhi Sua offered rewards

totalling a million francs.

Hosters went up and the police were confident that local greed would soon lead to a breakthrough.

But it did not come and soon there were complaints in the local press that the Dominici's

were being victimized because of their left wing sympathies.

The area around Lour had been an important stronghold of the communist led resistance

during the war.

Gustave Dominici had been a member of one group.

The area had seen bitter fighting during the German retreat and there had been killing

of collaborators and rivalry between resistance groups.

Arms had been kept after the liberation and used to settle wartime emnities or local feuds.

There had been a number of killings.

Gaston Dominici was born in 1877.

illegitimate he was put into care and became a shepherd after only basic schooling.

His only time away from the area had been when he did his military service in 1898.

Married in 1903 the Dominici's had four children by 1909.

Despite his poverty-stricken background Gaston had worked hard as a shepherd and labourer.

By 1932 he had been able to buy his own farm at Grand Terre.

He was locally reckoned to be one of the more wealthy peasants.

Gaston became a patriarchal figure who dominated his family particularly his son Gustave.

The police got their first break when they were tipped after the Dominici's neighbour

Paul Mayé owned a gun like the murder weapon.

A search found two illegal wartime sub-machine guns.

Under pressure Mayé revealed that Gustave had told him that when he first found Elizabeth

she had been alive.

He had panicked and run back to the farmhouse.

The little girl had been moaning slightly and her left arm had moved but no one called

a doctor.

She was dead when Gustave returned to the body.

Mayé also claimed the clovese the Dominici's eldest son had heard this.

Confronted with Mayé's evidence Gustave denied it for several hours and then admitted

it was true.

But he still insisted that he had found the girl after five in the morning.

Since the doctors were convinced that Elizabeth could not have lived for more than an hour

with her injuries the final attack on her must therefore have taken place not much

earlier than four o'clock much later than Gustave and Gaston's timing of the gunshots.

Gustave was immediately arrested and charged with failing to give aid to a person in peril

of death.

His trial began on the 13th of November 1952 at the Palais de Justis in Dean.

From the outset the judge made it clear that the only matter being tried was Gustave's

culpability for not helping the little girl.

No other witnesses were to be called.

Although it emerged that Gustave had almost certainly moved the body there was nothing

the police could do to challenge him or his claim that he had kept silent for fear of

being suspected of murder.

While crowds waited outside the court deliberated for 50 minutes and deferred its verdict for

a week.

Gustave was then sentenced to two months in prison.

The police were convinced that Gustave had lied but at the beginning of 1953 they seemed

no nearer solving the murder.

Criticism in the press grew but Superintendent Sebay remained convinced that sooner or later

tensions within the Dominique family would bring new information.

Then in March 1953 Gustave's nephew, 17 year old Roger Perra, let's slip that Lady

Drummond and her daughter had visited the farm on the night of the murder to get water.

Knowing that Perra's mother and Gaston did not get on and that the boy was a notorious

liar Sebay kept this new information secret.

But it did seem to solve one question which had troubled him.

Why Elizabeth had not tried to run for help to the farm when attacked?

It was only just down the road from the murder site but possibly she had known where her

attacker came from.

Some six months later an alert detective checking witness statements noticed that one of them,

a travelling salesman, had reported that when he passed the campsite at 7 in the morning

Lady Drummond's body had been lying alongside the car.

But when the police arrived her body was at right angles to it.

Shown photographs the witness confirmed that her body must have been moved.

On the 12th of October Sebay brought the Dominique's in for questioning again.

Gustave in particular was interrogated for some thirty hours.

He was confronted with Paul Maye's evidence again plus the new revelation that Lady Drummond's

body had been moved and Roger Perra's statement.

Gradually he broke down admitting that he had moved the body but only in order to check

if Lady Drummond had been dead.

Then on the afternoon of the 13th Gustave collapsed and revealed that his father had confessed

to killing the family after a quarrel with Sir Jack Drummond.

Gustave had confided in Clovis who swiftly confirmed his story that the old man had admitted

to the murders.

Gaston was defiant accusing his sons of cowardice and denying everything but after more than

twenty hours of questioning he too gave in confessing that he had gone out in the evening

with the Rockola Carbine to shoot vermin.

He had spied on Anne Drummond getting undressed and approached her.

Her husband had intervened angrily.

They had grappled and the gun had gone off injuring Sir Jack on the hand.

Gaston had then killed him with two shots and then disposed of Anne Drummond with a single

shot.

Her daughter had run off and he had chased her and clubbed it her death with the butt

of the gun.

This had broken with the impact.

Sebay was not impressed since many details such as the number of shots and the timing

of the deaths were wrong.

He was sure that the attack had been much more premeditated and that Gaston was shielding

his family.

Nevertheless he set up a reconstruction of the crime.

As they were reenacting the chasing of the girl Gaston took off towards the railway bridge

and tried to throw himself off.

The examining magistrate was convinced that this was a sure sign of guilt and Gaston Dominici

was taken away to be charged with the murders.

Gaston Dominici was brought to trial in Dean on the 17th of November 1954 in the same

courthouse that his son had been tried in two years before.

While in custody Gaston had withdrawn his confession and without this hard evidence against him

remained elusive as press and public crowded into the little courtroom.

The police could not even prove that he owned the rifle or that he had fired it.

Every time they had interviewed the family their stories had changed.

The presiding judge Marcel Busqué had two colleagues and seven jurors selected from

the local population.

Méthra Emile Pollack led the defense opposed by Méthra Wazaa for the prosecution.

After French law the presiding judge plays an active part in the preliminary interrogation

of the accused.

So the trial began with detailed questioning of Gaston Dominici in which he insisted again

that his confession had been forced out of him.

He went back to his original story, that he had got up at 4am and taken his goats to

pasture.

He only heard about the murders when he returned later in the morning.

Sebei must have been aware that the prosecution case rested largely on the insistence of Clovis

Dominici that the old man had admitted to the killings.

Most spectators soon realized that there were many unanswered questions which the police

investigation had failed to follow up.

After showing the court how she had been bludgeoned to death, Dr. Dragong asked how Elizabeth's

bare feet could have remained clean and uncut despite her desperate flight over Stoney Grande.

Dragong was convinced that Elizabeth must have died two or three hours after her parents,

prosecution experts claimed that the child's body could have developed rigor mortis much

more slowly.

Metropolak pointed out that the police had not followed up the sightings by witnesses

of more than one person near the campsite during the night, nor could they account for

the discrepancies in Gaston's confession.

He suggested that Clovis Dominici, Roger Perra and Paul Mayé were out to settle old family

feuds.

Members of the family continually changed their statements.

In the absence of hard evidence, it became apparent that Gaston Dominici's fate would

largely depend on whether the jury believed Clovis Dominici's insistence that his father

had admitted to the murders.

Finally, on the 28th of November, the waiting began as the seven-man jury withdrew to consider

its verdict.

As was customary in French courts, the three judges went with them and were entitled to

vote.

Within two hours, Gaston Dominici was led back into court.

He was found guilty and sentenced to die by the guillotine.

Just as soon as Dominici was led from the court, protests about the verdict and the

way the trial had been conducted erupted.

After a series of appeals, Dominici's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1957.

Part of the reason for this was a new confession from him which seemed to implicate both Roger

Perra and Gustave Dominici in the murders.

The police launched further inquiries, but the network of lies and evasions again proved

too great.

In 1960, at the age of 83, Gaston Dominici was freed with a presidential pardon.

He died five years later.

The drummons were buried in the small town of Forcalcier, but few of the people who attended

the funeral or the subsequent trial felt that the truth had emerged.

There were too many unresolved questions, and the killing of the drummons remains one

of the most mysterious crimes of post-war history.

Why had the police failed to investigate the witness claims that more than one person had

been seen lurking near the drummons' car?

Why had they not found out who else had been at Kralter on the evening of the murder?

Why had they not followed up the inconsistencies in Gaston Dominici's confession?

If Gaston Dominici had really committed the murders at the time the drummons were getting

ready for bed, why had Gustave Dominici lied about hearing shots fired at one o'clock?

How was it that Elizabeth Drummond's feet had not been dirty or cut?

What was the motive?

Since nothing substantial seemed to have been stolen.

The questions go on and on.

Many felt that although Gaston might have been involved, he probably did not carry out

the murders alone.

The truth had been successfully buried amid the lies, evasions and feuds of a peasant

family.