Today news
FRENCH police investigating the 1984 killing of a four-year-old boy arrested three of his relatives on Wednesday, raising hopes of a breakthrough in one of the country’s most high-profile unsolved murder cases.

Gregory Villemin was found — his hands and feet tied — drowned in the cold waters of the Vologne river in eastern France in October 1984, sparking a long and convoluted legal saga that transfixed France for years.

The death of “Little Gregory”, as he became known, led to one of France’s most notorious post-war murder mysteries, as police sought to untangle a web of family hatred and local jealousies.

On Wednesday morning, nearly 33 years after the murder, police arrested Marcel Jacob, an uncle of Gregory’s father, and Jacob’s wife in the Vosges mountains.

Ginette Villemin, half-sister to Gregory’s father Jean-Marie Villemin, was also detained in the same region, police sources told AFP.

Gregory’s grandparents were also questioned but were later released.

The arrests “target people very close to the heart of this case and aim to clarify certain points and to provide answers to questions we have,” local prosecutor Jean-Jacques Bosc said in a statement.