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The Priest of Uruffe Affair was a French criminal case in which Guy Desnoyers, parish priest at Uruffe, killed his mistress, 19-year-old Régine Fays, on December 3, 1956.

Guy Desnoyers
Guy Desnoyers was born on February 24, 1920 in Haplemont, a hamlet in Saintois in Meurthe-et-Moselle. Coming from a fairly well-to-do and pious peasant family, he had a disabled sister who was raped as a child. He was promised the priesthood at a very young age by his maternal grandmother, a dominant personality in the family. He went to the minor, then to the major seminary in Bosserville and Villers-lès-Nancy. He is described as a “good kid” but his peers notice his taste for women and express doubts about his vocation.

During the Second World War, he was requisitioned to work in a German-run factory in Neuves-Maisons, yet also helped escaped prisoners at the home of his uncle-in-law, Émile Marulier, in Harol in the Vosges. At the Liberation, he claimed to have killed a German sentry, though without any proof.

When the war was over, he was ordained a priest in 1946, then assigned to Blâmont as curate. His superior, Father Klein, noticed that the new recruit preferred basketball to theology. During this first appointment, at the age of twenty-six and still a virgin, he had his first affair with a woman, Madeleine. This caused an authoritarian transfer of his superiors as vicar in Réhon, in the north of Meurthe-et-Moselle. Rumors claimed other affairs, in particular with a wealthy widow who had just lost her husband. This gave him 150,000 francs for the repair of the roof of the church and for the purchase of a 4 CV. This did not prevent him from continuing to see Madeleine regularly. Thus, while having relations with other mistresses, the relationship between Desnoyers and Madeleine lasted until October 1956.

In July 1950, he was appointed parish priest of Uruffe, a village of 392 inhabitants adjoining the department of Meuse. An active priest and rather appreciated by his parishioners, he distinguished himself in particular by setting up a football team with young local boys or by organizing excursions. The village elders found this priest quite singular, but the young people liked this "modern" personality for the time. They find it accessible. Guy Desnoyers maintained relationships with several women in the region, some of whom being minors (the age of majority being then fixed at 21). In December 1953, Guy Desnoyers conceived a child with the fifteen-year-old, Michèle Léonard. Following rumors circulating in the village, he persuaded her to give birth clandestinely in Ain and to abandon "the child of sin" to Public Assistance. The Bishop of Nancy, Marc-Armand Lallier, upon learning of these facts, decided to pay a visit to the priest. The latter threw himself on his knees and asked his bishop to believe in his innocence. The interview shook Lallier who renewed his confidence in the priest. Months of repeated absences of the priest began to worry his parishioners. Desnoyers later evoked periods of “torment and anguish."

Facts and Investigation
In 1956, he had a relationship with Régine Fays, a nineteen-year-old from Uruffe working at a glass factory in Vannes-le-Châtel. Seduced during a theatrical activity he had created, she found herself pregnant by the priest, like Michèle Léonard three years earlier. Desnoyers convinced Régine's father that his daughter's lover is a local young man who raped her during a village fete before leaving for the Algerian War. Few people believed the story, prompting public protests to his parishioners where he claimed slander. Régine Fays promised to keep the paternity of the child a secret, yet refused to give birth clandestinely, to abandon her child or to have an abortion.

December 3, 1956, shortly before the expected date of delivery, Desnoyers grew fearful and led the future mother to a small deserted road leading to Pagny-la-Blanche-Côte, stopping near a grove. He twice offered the woman to give him absolution, yet she refused and walked away. Guy Desnoyers followed her with a 6.35 mm pistol and shot her three times during the night. Immediately after killing her, he disembowels her with the help of a scout's penknife, takes out the viable fetus (she is then eight months pregnant and the autopsy will reveal that the infant was alive), a little girl whom he baptizes to save her from Limbo, and kills her with a knife, then slashes her face in order to erase any possible resemblance. The mother and her child are pushed into a ditch.

In the evening, the parents of Régine Fays are worried about her disappearance. Desnoyers alerted the mayor, rang the tocsin and organized the search to find her, in an attempt to dismiss the probable suspicions that would fall on him. At one o'clock in the morning, Desnoyers pointed to a ditch by the side of the road in which the woman lay. Suspicions quickly fell on the priest, as a friend of Fays' confided to the police she had been told he was the father. A 6.35 mm cartridge case was found near the body, with Desnoyers holding a license to carry a weapon for this caliber. Placed in custody on December 5, 1956, Guy Desnoyers vehemently denied the charge, claiming first that the sacramental seal bound him from naming the true murderer, before confessing after a period of forty-eight hours.

Trial and Conviction
The trial began at Nancy's Court of Assizes on January 24, 1958, one year after the murders, where a crowd massed at the courthouse demanding the death penalty.

January 26, after two days of trial, the prosecutor agreed with the crowd in his indictment:

The defense lawyer, president of the bar Robert Gasse, answers him: "“God of believers, descend into the conscience of the court, into the souls of the jurors. Tell them they have no right to touch life because life is yours alone.'" Before the jury deliberations, Desnoyers made a final statement: "“I am a priest, I remain a priest, I will repair as a priest. I abandon myself to you because I know that before me you hold the place of God.'" After an hour and forty minutes of deliberation, the seven Lorraine jurors delivered their verdict. To all questions asked (on double crime, on infanticide and on premeditation), the jurors answered, "Yes," by a majority. However, the accused was recognized to have mitigating circumstances, which allowed him to escape capital punishment; he was instead sentenced to forced labor for life.

Epilogue
August 5, 1978, after twenty-two years of detention, Desnoyers became the oldest prisoner of France and obtained parole. Different rumors saw him in the South of France, in Louisiana, or living with a visitor to the prison.

As provided for on his parole, he retired to the Sainte-Anne of Kergonan Abbey in Plouharnel, Morbihan, where he died on April 21, 2010 at the age of ninety.

The plaque of the two victims, in the cemetery of Uruffe, originally bore the following inscription: "Here lies Fays Régine, killed on December 3, 1956, at the age of 19, by the parish priest." Despite repeated requests from the bishopric, Régine's family has refused to withdraw her. Since the death of Régine's father, the epitaph has been amputated twice. Following repeated pressure from the Church, it now only mentions the names of the two victims of the priest Desnoyers, without more precision either on their murder, or their murderer.

Literature

 * Marcel Jouhandeau, Three Ritual Crimes, Paris, Gallimard, 1962, 96 p. ISBN 2070234525.
 * Jean-François Colosimo, The Day of God's Wrath, Paris, Jean-Claude Lattès, 2000, 272 p. ISBN 978-2-709-62163-2.
 * Jean Raspail, Mercy, Paris, Les Équateurs, 2019, 173 p. ISBN 978-2-849-90596-8.
 * Arnaud Zuck, Devil's Dawn, Éditions Ex Æquo, 2021. ISBN 979-10-388-0114-1 voir son site

Filmography
Four films were inspired by the case :


 * Marie and the Priest (1967), short film by Diourka Medveczky (known as Christ), with Jean-Claude Castelli (in the role of the priest) and Bernadette Lafont;
 * Here Below (1996), short film by Philippe Ramos, with Pascal Andres in the role of the priest;
 * The Prince of this World (2008), feature film by Manuel Gomez, with Laurent Lucas (in the role of the priest), Lio, and Charlotte Vandriessche;
 * Mad Love (2015), feature film by Philippe Ramos, with Melvil Poupaud (in the role of the priest), Dominique Blanc (in the role of the wealthy widow), and Diane Rouxel (in the role of the victim).

TV Documentaries and Radio Shows

 * "The Priest of Uruffe" December 6, 2013 in 50 Years of Miscellaneous Events on 13 e  rue and on Planète+ Justice.
 * Arnaud Zuck was interviewed by Jean-Alphonse Richard in The Time of Crime on April 28, 2021, from 8-9 P.M. on RTL. The podcast The Priest of Uruffe, a Murderous Devil is here

Related Articles

 * List of French criminal cases
 * Sexual Abuse of Women in the Catholic Church