A former French military cop confessed in his suicide note that he was the sinister serial killer behind several rapes and murders dating back to the 1980s, reports said.
Francois Verove, 59, admitted he was “Le Grêlé” or “The Pockmarked Man” as police closed in on him for crimes including the rape and murder of an 11-year-old in 1986, the French-language paper Le Parisien reported.
Verove killed himself Wednesday in the town of Grau-du-Roi with a fatal dose of medication after he had ducked a DNA test that could’ve linked him to the long-unsolved crimes, Le Parisien said.
The alleged killer, who was reportedly married with two children, said in his note he was “not well” during his spree, which apparently ended in the 1990s, but he said he had gotten himself together, the BBC reported.
“The Pockmarked Man” is believed to be behind the 1986 rape and murder of 11-year-old Cécile Bloch in Fountainebleau, according to the BBC. The girl’s body was found stabbed to death in the basement of the apartment building where her family lived, the report said.
A witness said he ran into a man in the elevator on the day of the killing who had pockmarks on his skin, leading to the nickname – and an artist’s sketch of the suspect that hung on the walls of local police department for decades, the BBC said.
The man in the elevator told the witness to have a “very, very good day,” the witness said in an interview with Sud Ouest in 2015.
DNA linked “The Pockmarked Man” to other crimes, such as a 1987 double murder, the 1994 murder of 19-year old Karine Leroy and six rapes with victims as young as 11 years old, reports said.