The Gouffé Case

Millery's bloody trunk, the Gouffé trunk,the Gouffé Case or the Eyraud-Bompard affair was an 1889 French murder case. On 26 July 1889, Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé, a Parisian civil servant at Montmartre, was reported missing. Two weeks later, Gouffé's corpse was found near Millery village, a suburb of Lyon. The inquiry captured the attention of the French press for much of the year, and the case's impact was felt through the rest of the 19th century.

The victim, Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé, a court bailiff, was murdered by a couple, Michel Eyraud and Gabrielle Bompard.

The new investigative techniques used in this case marked a milestone in forensic pathology and forensic science.

On the 13th of August, 1889, roadmender Denis Coffy received a complaint of a bad smell on the secondary road in Vernaison in Millery. According to «The Tower of Millery», a large oilskin cloth bag, emitting a foul smell, was found under a bush. Authorities were alerted. In the bag the investigating officers spotted a small clue.

A forensic surgeon, Paul Bernard, undertook an autopsy on August 14th. He noted in his autopsy report that the naked body was bound with seven meters of rope, the head was enveloped in a black oilskin cloth and that the victim had obviously died by strangulation three to five weeks before. Three months later the body was examined by doctor Alexandre Lacassagne. Lacassagne's autopsy started on November 13, 1889 and lasted a week. Based on a sample of hair taken from Gouffé's comb, and the description of an old back injury in his missing person's report, Dr Lacassagne identified the body from the trunk as Gouffé. Nowadays such a method is routine in a forensic examination. The victim, the 49-year-old Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé, had kept a study at 148 Montmartre in Paris. He was described as a respectable widower, properly raising his two daughters, but also said to be somewhat of a womaniser.

The discovery of an abandoned trunk, noticed by a trader of snails, two days after the sinister find of the roadmender, pushed the inquiry in Saint-Genis-Laval. The key fitted to the lock, a missing nail was similar with a nail found in Millery and the stench from the chest left no doubt about its objective usage. A tag glued to the one of the boards imparted that the trunk travelled from Paris to Lyon by rail, on July 27, 1888 or 1889, the last figure was unreadable. The registers of the company PLM insured that 1889 was the precise year, and this date corresponded just after disappearance of the bailiff. The prosecutor of Lyon decided to transmit elements in his possession to the Public Prosecutions of Paris which entrusted the inquiry to the commissioner Marie-François Goron, leader of Parisian Safety (La Surete) since 1887. The inspectors explored habits and relations of the bailiff, and realized that he saw frequently, just before his disappearance, a couple of swindlers: Michel Eyraud and his mistress Gabrielle Bompard. Coincidence more than disturbing: they left Paris hurriedly on July 27. On July 29, the brother-in-law of the missing, was anxious about his unexplained absence and alerted the police station of the district. On November 29, one of the first Interpol notice was broadcast against both swindlers. Later suspicion was confirmed when a carpenter in London identified the trunk, which he sold to Eyraud and Bompard.

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