Pierre Chanal was a warrant officer in the French army, an adjudant-chef, and in Irish reports a former commando. In August 1988 he was arrested after kidnapping a young hitchhiker, and in October 1990 a French court sentenced him to ten years in prison. The case drew attention far beyond the offense itself. Since 1980, young men had been disappearing from the roads around the army garrisons near Mourmelon, in northeastern France, and most of them were conscript soldiers who hitchhiked to and from their units. Chanal had driven those same roads.
Years later he was charged with murdering three young men in the 1980s. One of them was Trevor O'Keeffe, a student from Naas, County Kildare, Ireland, who was killed while hitchhiking in France in August 1987. Chanal denied the charges. His trial opened at Reims on October 14, 2003. Early the next morning he took his own life in the hospital where he was being held, and the case ended without a verdict.
Little has been published about Chanal's early life. In its 1991 edition, the Larousse yearbook Journal de l'année identified him by his rank, adjudant-chef, the senior grade of warrant officer in the French army. RTÉ News called him a former French army commando, and the Irish Examiner called him an ex-soldier. He was 56 years old in October 2003, according to RTÉ.
The disappearances took place in northeastern France between 1980 and 1987. RTÉ reported that eight young men vanished in that period and that most of the disappearances happened in an area between three military garrisons, a stretch of country that became known as the "triangle of death."
Writing in the Journal de l'année for 1991, the legal chronicler Pierre Bois described them as conscripts who hitchhiked along the route that Chanal used and who never came home. In France they were called "les disparus de Mourmelon," the missing men of Mourmelon, and Bois noted that, at the time of Chanal's 1990 trial, they were still missing.
Trevor O'Keeffe came from Naas, in County Kildare. He was a student, and in the summer of 1987 he was hitchhiking through France. Kildare Now gives his age as 19; the Irish Examiner described him in 2003 as a 20-year-old from County Kildare. He was killed in August 1987. His body was found that August near Reims, according to RTÉ, and the Irish Examiner reported that he had been strangled.
His family pressed the case for years. His mother campaigned for 13 years to see the man accused of killing him brought to trial and jailed, the Irish Examiner reported in 2003, and she later wrote a book about her son's death and her search for justice, published under the title Fatal Journey. His family has since marked the anniversaries of his death, Kildare Now reported.
Chanal was arrested in August 1988 after he kidnapped a young man travelling on foot, RTÉ reported. The Journal de l'année described the young man as a hitchhiker.
The arrest connected an army warrant officer with a hitchhiker held against his will, at a time when conscripts who hitchhiked near Mourmelon had been vanishing for eight years. Pierre Bois, reviewing the year's trials, wrote that this link drew attention to the case. In his view, the 1990 hearing was more than an ordinary criminal trial, because it brought to the surface suspicions and fears that had gone unspoken.
Bois noted that the charges could have been sent to a lower criminal court, where a ten-year term would not have been possible, but the case was treated as a grave one. On October 23, 1990, Chanal was sentenced to ten years in prison for the kidnapping, with other charges.
RTÉ reported that he served the ten-year sentence and was released on probation in June 1995.
RTÉ reported in 2003 that fresh DNA evidence linking Chanal to the cases came to light in 1997, and that he had been awaiting trial since then.
He was eventually charged with the murders of three young men in the 1980s. Trevor O'Keeffe was one of them. The Irish Examiner described the other two as French army conscripts. Chanal denied the murder charges, RTÉ reported. The broadcaster described him as accused of murdering three of the eight young men and suspected of killing up to eight.
The trial was first set to open in May 2003, but it was postponed after Chanal tried to take his own life that month, RTÉ reported. From July he refused food, and he was being force-fed.
The trial opened on Tuesday, October 14, 2003. Doctors ruled that he was too ill to attend court, and he was taken to a prison hospital nearby, where transcripts of each day's hearing were to be read to him. Dozens of relatives came to the court, among them members of the O'Keeffe family.
Pierre Chanal died early on October 15, 2003, in a hospital in Reims, on the second day of his trial. He was 56. He took his own life while under round-the-clock guard, RTÉ reported. The Irish Examiner reported that police believed someone had helped him. He died before any verdict, and no court ruled on the murder charges.
Trevor's mother told the Irish Examiner that she was shocked and that she wanted to know who had helped him. She said that the police and the hospital staff had not taken care of him, and she said: "Justice has failed us again."
His sister said: "We've been robbed. There is no justice." She told the paper that she believed someone, somewhere, had conspired to hide the truth.
Pierre Chanal was never convicted of killing anyone. His only conviction was the 1990 kidnapping case. The murder charges in the deaths of three young men, Trevor O'Keeffe among them, ended with his death before a verdict. The other disappearances near Mourmelon were linked to him by suspicion, not by any charge that reached a court. RTÉ described him as suspected of killing up to eight young men; that suspicion was never tested at trial.
Accounts also differ on small points. Trevor O'Keeffe's age is given as 19 by the Kildare press and as 20 by the Irish Examiner, and his surname is spelled both O'Keeffe and O'Keefe in Irish coverage.
1980: The first of the disappearances of young men, most of them conscripts, around the Mourmelon garrisons in the Marne.
1980 to 1987: Eight young men vanish in the area, according to RTÉ.
August 1987: Trevor O'Keeffe, an Irish student from Naas, is killed while hitchhiking in France; his body is found near Reims that month.
August 1988: Chanal is arrested after kidnapping a young hitchhiker.
October 23, 1990: A French court sentences him to ten years in prison for the kidnapping, with other charges.
June 1995: Released on probation.
1997: Fresh DNA evidence linking him to the cases comes to light, according to RTÉ.
May 2003: His murder trial is postponed after he tries to take his own life.
July 2003: He begins refusing food and is force-fed.
October 14, 2003: The trial opens at Reims, with Chanal in a prison hospital, judged too ill to attend.
October 15, 2003: He dies in a hospital in Reims, on the second day of the trial; the murder charges end without a verdict.