14 March 2024 , 13:03
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A retired cop who murdered and raped children and adults appeared on a TV game show laughing whilst police struggled to hunt him down.
French serial killer, François Vérove, was a contestant on Tout le monde veut prendre sa place (Everyone Wants to Take His Place) in 2019 after being on the run for three decades. During the show, he exchanged in light-hearted humour about being a cop with TV host Nagui Fam.
He was applauded by the audience after he answered general knowledge questions in the studio. French outlet Marianne, exposed the paedophile over his show appearance, who brazenly stepped out without disguising his identity. The news raised concerns on why detectives were unable to catch the killer, despite them having a description and suspecting that he was a cop.
François Vérove appeared on the show as police continued their 30-year hunt to find him (France 2)Two years after his appearance, the 59-year-old Vérove, who lived with his wife and two children, left a note inside a flat where he committed suicide and overdosed, reports Express. The paper informed 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.
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The sick killer 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.
Vérove appeared on Tout le monde veut prendre sa place in 2019 (France 2)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.