Mulhouse enters the book as the setting of a highly publicized killing on Christmas Eve 1996. The case centered on David Oberdorf, a 19-year-old who had professed his faith before Father Jean Uhl at Saint Adelphe Church some years earlier, and whose later attack on the elderly priest became part of the book’s account of how crimes were interpreted through the anxieties surrounding Black Metal and Satanism.

The Killing and Its Local Background

Oberdorf went to Father Uhl’s residence in Mulhouse on Christmas Eve. The book presents the encounter as a return to a clergyman who had previously been part of the young man’s religious life: Oberdorf had made his profession of faith before Uhl at Saint Adelphe Church. Prosecutors later speculated that the killing was intended to symbolize the death of Christ, while the account makes clear that this was a proposed interpretation rather than an established motive.

The reporting described circumstances that complicated any single explanation. Oberdorf had previously attempted suicide and had placed anonymous harassing calls to Father Uhl. His room was described as ordinary apart from a collection of disturbing compact discs; neighbors had noticed music playing late at night. These details became part of the public portrait of the young man, but the book does not treat them as proof that music caused the crime.

People and Connections

An 18-year-old acquaintance, Stephane Fest, was arrested after police found that he had hidden the weapon used in the killing. The account identifies him as one of a small circle of male teenagers with whom Oberdorf spent time; both youths routinely dressed in black. These facts establish an association around the case, but do not by themselves show that the group shared a motive or participated equally in the crime.

The book also traces a reported connection between Oberdorf and Anthony Mignoni, who had been described as the initiator of David Oberdorf. Mignoni had served a sentence for desecrating corpses in Toulon the previous summer. The account explicitly limits the connection: Mignoni was not directly implicated in Father Uhl’s murder and had an alibi, having been at his grandmother’s home that evening. Mulhouse is thus linked in the narrative to a wider sequence of sensationally reported incidents, without the evidence making those cases a single coordinated episode.

Press Coverage and Interpretation

The France-Soir coverage placed Oberdorf’s conduct alongside references to Black Metal and what other reports called Viking music. The account notes that neighbors’ description of the sound from his room reflected an unfamiliar listener’s impression, not a reliable identification of the causes of the crime. It also records that reports described Oberdorf as impressionable and of modest intelligence, details that contributed to the press portrait but do not settle the question of motive.

The coverage appeared amid a longer history of Satanism-related alarm. In its discussion of Norway, the book describes how news reports had presented Black Metal youth as a broad religious threat, prompting fearful responses from police and church congregations. It uses the Mulhouse case to show the persistence of this interpretive pattern: disturbing acts and associations could be gathered into a larger story about Satanism, music, or extremism, even when those connections did not establish a direct causal explanation.

Significance in the Book

Mulhouse is not developed as a general portrait of the city; its significance here is concentrated in the Father Uhl case and the competing interpretations attached to it. The narrative distinguishes the documented relationships and reported circumstances from speculation about symbolism and influence. That distinction makes the location a point in the book’s broader examination of how a particular crime could become evidence, in the press, for a much larger account of youth culture and social danger.