French reopen Little Grégory murder case after 25 years

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Grégory Villemin was found tied up and drowned in the Vologne river in a bleak area of the Vosges mountains in eastern France.

A day after the body was found, a poison-pen letter arrived at the home of the child's parents - who had been receiving anonymous hate mail from someone calling himself "Le Corbeau", the Crow, since 1981 - claiming responsibility for the murder and calling it "vengeance".

The killing set in motion a 17-year legal saga that was concluded in 2001, after investigators failed to identity either the killer or the sender of the mysterious letters.

Parents Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin fought to have the case reopened so that DNA testing could be carried out on the rope used to tie their son's hands and feet.

Their lawyer, Marie-Christine Chastant-Morand, said the appeal court in eastern Dijon agreed yesterday to allow investigators to search for traces of DNA on evidence seized during the investigation.

The case of Little Grégory, as it was known, became one of France's most notorious post-war criminal mysteries as police sought to untangle a web of family hatreds and local jealousies.

A second cousin of the child, Bernard Laroche, was charged with the killing, based on evidence given by his 15-year-old sister-in-law - but was released from custody after she withdrew her allegations, claiming she had been pressured by police.

The authorities then came up with a new theory, that his mother Christine was the killer.

The pregnant woman collapsed after questioning and was taken to hospital, reportedly losing one of the twins she was carrying.

Between hospital visits, Grégory's father Jean-Marie went to Laroche's home and shot him dead.

Villemin spent two and half years in prison for the crime.

Later that year, his wife was charged with her son's murder. Christine was finally cleared eight years later and all charges against her dropped.

The inquiry was reopened briefly in 2000 to allow for DNA testing of a stamp on a hate letter sent to the Villemins months before the murder but the probe yielded no new clues to the killer's identity.