Going West: True Crime - Hugues de la Plaza // 191

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

In 2007, a 36-year-old French man living in San Francisco was found dead in his apartment after a night out. Despite suffering multiple stab wounds and suspicious evidence being found at the scene, police believed it to be a suicide. Meanwhile, his family, friends, French authorities, and more felt it was a clear cut murder. This is the story of Hugues de la Plaza. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-mystery-a-case-for-murder/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/24pms3/the_death_of_hugues_de_la_plaza/ https://hoodline.com/2013/06/in-pursuit-of-justice-the-story-of-hugues-de-la-plaza/#:~:text=Born%20in%20France%20on%20June,and%20a%20philosopher%20by%20heart. https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-nix/ http://truecrimediary.com/index.cfm?page=cases&id=57 https://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/me_report.pdf https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Homicide-or-suicide-Man-s-death-a-mystery-3219748.php https://tucson.com/news/national/cops-its-suicide-kin-its-murder/article_49e01097-e52c-5948-a221-6e48a4f30ff8.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Tee- And I'm your host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Today's case has a lot of controversy surrounding it. So much so that actually calling it a murder is considered a conspiracy theory which I personally don't understand and you guys will see as this story unravels today. Thank you so much by the way to Heather for telling us about this case because I hadn't heard of it until you brought it to our attention so really appreciate

you sending this one over and if anybody else has a case that they want to send over, just go ahead and email us going west podcast at gmail.com. That is the best place to send them in. We have a very long list right now. So if it takes us a while to get to your cases, so sorry, but we are doing our best. You can also post your suggestions over at our discussion group, which is going west discussion group over on Facebook.

And if you want to join that, that would be great because in our discussion group we just kind of, you know, Heath and I jump in there and talk to you guys about the cases that we release and it's a fun place to be. Also make sure that you give us a follow on our socials, you can follow us over on Instagram at GoingWestPodcast and on Twitter at GoingWestPod. Those are great places to talk to us about the cases, especially this one today. I cannot wait to hear what you guys have to think of this one. So let's go. All right guys, this is episode 191 of GoingWest.

So let's get into it. In 2007, a 36-year-old French man living in San Francisco was found dead in his apartment after a night out. Despite suffering multiple stab wounds and suspicious evidence being found at the scene, police believed it to be a suicide. Meanwhile, his family, friends, French authorities, and more felt that his death was a clear cut murder. This is the story of Ugg De La Plaza. Ugg De La Plaza was born on June 11, 1971 in France, and he was the only child of Morey and Francois de la Plaza. Ugg was cultured and cosmopolitan, obviously grew up speaking French, but also spoke English

with ease. His friends fondly remember him using that to charm the ladies as well, so being, you know, bilingual kind of helped him a little bit, and he was an avid traveler. He was passionate about Japanese culture, and he loved Argentina so much that he was planning on buying property there. Ugg enjoyed riding motorcycles and going to Burning Man, he was a vegetarian and a foodie, and considered himself a dreamer and philosopher. He was supremely proud of his French heritage and culture, and he lived in France until 1999, when working alongside Americans kind of peaked his curiosity enough for him to move

to New York City at the age of 28. It was there that he met Melissa Nix, a beautiful writer whom he wound updating for four years, and even living within Brooklyn. At some point during their time together, Melissa moved to the California Bay Area to attend graduate school for journalism at UC Berkeley. Whether they move there together or separately is unclear, but in 2003, Ugg joined her in San Francisco. He began working as a sound engineer at Leapfrog,

which is a manufacturer of educational children's toys and software based just outside of San Francisco. So while their relationship ended in January of 2007, they remained the closest to friends. Ugg resided in the popular Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, a pocket of boutiques, bars, and restaurants situated right between Haydashbury, where the hippie movement began, and Soma, or South of Market Street, on the Oakland Bay. It's now described as a tight-knit community, historic, clean, and just beautiful.

While the neighborhood is now thought of as pretty safe, home to mostly urban professionals in their 20s and young families, 15 years ago it was a bit of a different story. As with any big city, there's some pretty city sections and safe sections, but San Francisco was struggling with their violent crime rates in the early 2000s, and Hayes Valley was right below the most dangerous and crime-ridden area in the city at the time, the tenderloin neighborhood. So aside from his breakup with Melissa, 2007 had been a good year for UG. He had just received a promotion at work and he was putting money away, like I said, to save for the house, in his beloved Buenos Aires Argentina, and he was also learning Japanese.

He seemed very much fulfilled and content living this kind of bachelor lifestyle and seemed to love being this social butterfly with his many friends, just going out dancing and having fun. June 1st 2007 had been a typical Friday for UG. He spent it working alongside his friend and colleague, Neil Zirama. They left the office together for lunch, played a game of pool, finished out the work day, and then Ugg took off for a date. He met up with Neil again later that night after the date was kind of a bust,

telling him that it hadn't gotten very well and that they were just going to be friends. Neil and Ugg, along with their two other co-workers, Marin Thompson and Ray Osburn, met at Underground SF, which is a club in the lower hate neighborhood of San Francisco, and they kind of met up for drinks and dancing to celebrate Ug's promotion. After closing down the club, Neil and Ug said goodnight and parted ways, and Ugg mentioned that he was going to find another woman to sleep with, which may or may not have been a joke. They made plans to meet up the next day for a motorcycle ride, and that would be the last time Neil would ever see his friend. So Ubb made the 6 minute walk from underground SF to his apartment at 962, Lyndon Avenue

in Hayes Valley. Though we posted photos on our social as usual, it's important to give the visual that the entrance to this apartment was up a fairly short flight of stairs and the door was outside on the street. So it wasn't like many other apartment buildings where you enter into a lobby and then go from there. His apartment, along with a couple others, had doors all next to each other at the top of the stairs landing. He arrived home at 206 am, and then 32 minutes later, at 238 am, neighbors heard commotion, and what sounded like doors slamming, someone fleeing down the stairs,

and then a loud thud against the wall shared between their two apartments. The next time Ugg would be seen by anyone, it would be by the police after entering through his back door forcibly, only to find his lifeless body and an unconscionable amount of blood. At 8.10am on the foggy morning of Saturday June 2nd, 2007, Ugg's neighbor Orion Denley went outside to retrieve his newspaper and then he noticed droplets of something that suspiciously resembled blood dotting the porch in front of Ugg's door as well as his door knob. Orion called the police to investigate and when no one answered the front door, which

was dead bolted, police went around to the back door and noticed through the window that there was blood inside as well, so they forced their way into the home. By 8.33 a.m., Ugg was pronounced dead. He had bled out from three different stab wounds, but he was locked inside of his apartment with no forced entry and no murder weapon. And we'll go into more details regarding the night of his death here in a few minutes. Oh god, this is just such a crazy case to me that, you know, police arrive,

there's blood everywhere, who is dead? The doors are locked. Yeah. Jinx. What the f**k? Yeah. So, but what began as a murder investigation quickly dissolved to a suicide investigation later that day. Now stay with me guys. So Chief Investigator Antonio Cassias began questioning neighbors immediately. He first questioned Orion Denley, the one who called the police originally, and Gatangela Boussan, who lived next door. Within hours of the grizzly discovery, just kind of asking them if they thought Oog had been suicidal.

They said, unequivocally, no. The investigation was underway, but it seemed that the San Francisco Police Department was only looking for evidence that would substantiate his cause of death as a suicide. So, police seemed to treat this case differently from the jump. Now Niel Zirama, who was the friend he was out with the previous evening, said he had only found out about his friend's death after Ugg failed to show up on both Saturday and Sunday. Because remember, they had this plan together that they had made the previous evening.

So Niel claims that he called police for information 12 times to no avail. When Melissa found this out, helpless and across the country in New York, she attempted to contact police for answers and they would not talk to her. She discovered that police hadn't even notified Marais and Francois, Ugg's parents, that their child was dead, although they apparently told Melissa later that they already had been notified. So, not super clear on that. But according to Melissa, two days after Ugg's death, she called his parents in the middle

of the night, waking them up to deliver the horrifying news. And she later told CBS that she heard Ugg's mother Screaming in the background That's so sad and and it's and there are friends. It was also their only child as well Yeah, yeah, absolutely and they're all the way in France and there's no answers and police are saying it's a suicide yet That doesn't seem to be matching up. Yeah. It's very confusing. Exactly. And the police aren't talking to Uggs loved ones who are trying to get information,

which is even more frustrating. So four days after Ugg's death, police finally interviewed Melissa. In the initial medical examiner's report, there's an entire paragraph dedicated to her testimony that sounds indicative of him taking his own life, but she maintains that they framed it to her as a suicide, asking leading questions. Written in this report, Melissa stated that he had been drinking more and using cocaine

since their breakup. Now the medical examiner Dr. Venus Azar did pursue the possibility that drugs could be involved, but at the time of his death, the only substance Ugg had in his system was alcohol. When the autopsy was performed, they found a BAC blood alcohol content of 0.11%, which is too high to drive, but within a normal range for a night out. The only medication he'd been prescribed was Viagra, although it was not present in his system at the time of his death. So Melissa said that she had been concerned that Ugg was depressed and had considered suicide,

but that she'd question him about it and he denied it. She did, however, during this interview, ask Detective Cassias, quote, can I ask you one thing? Was this a Harakiri? So Harakiri is a ritual suicide by disembowelment with a samurai sword depicted in many of the violent samurai movies that Uglov'd so much. Investigators, and apparently even Melissa, wondered if this was what he was going for. However, Melissa maintains that she didn't actually think he could do that to himself, and that she only asked because the investigation seemed to be leaning towards that. Due to his love of Japanese history and culture, police latched onto this theory and did not let go.

Authorities were reportedly finished analyzing the crime scene pretty quickly, and it somehow fell to Melissa to hire a biohazard cleaning crew for the apartment so that his parents didn't have to see it in the state in which it was left, because there was blood all over his apartment. Yeah, it was a horrifying scene. A horrifying scene. And of course, Uggs, grieving parents, were also questioned upon their arrival to the US, despondent at the loss of their son

and adamant that he could not and would not have done this to himself. So sure, in fact, that they hired a local private investigator named John Murphy, and they also got French authorities involved. Now, in an unprecedented move, French authorities traveled to San Francisco to conduct their own investigation, and the Dala Plaza spent five weeks there following their son's death. So they were like, there's no way he did this to himself.

You guys are not doing the investigation properly, So we're going to discuss this with French authorities and French authorities felt the same way so much so that they flew to San Francisco to investigate themselves. Yeah. And that speaks volumes to the way that this was potentially handled. But also the fact that his family does not have trust in these investigators at all. Right. So I know a lot of you guys are probably wondering, wait, like what happened? What are the details? So Heath is going to go into that right now. Why don't you unravel that evening for us? Will do.

So sometime between 206 AM when UG arrived home and 238 AM when his neighbors presumably heard him fall to his death, something unthinkable happened to him. Let's break down those 32 minutes, because obviously there's a span of time here that we need to focus on. So security camera footage captures Oog coming home at 2.06 a.m. visibly drunk, but seemingly in pretty good spirits. Unfortunately, this camera isn't the most reliable source

as it doesn't capture any side or back doors, and it was also only capturing images every five seconds. So someone could have easily escaped, you know, getting picked up by that time. Also, it's important to know that this camera is only at one angle, so it's not like it's right in front of his apartment door catching every five seconds. It's like on that same street. So you can't see his direct front door from this camera. You can just see him walking to his apartment. So that is important to know

that there is another side of the street. You know, this is only one angle. Sure. So Uguin inside and made a late night dinner of rice and peas. A few bites of which were found in his stomach during his autopsy. There was a mostly untouched plate of food on the counter, where the fork still perched on it, and the pot he used to cook it in was left on the stove alongside a full sink of dishes, including a 5 inch knife. So after this, he went online checking out different adult sites and dating sites, because remember this is before dating apps existed.

And at 2.38 am, his charge cord was ripped from his computer. It was around this time that Ugg's neighbors reported hearing his front door open and close, before a door slam, someone running down the stairs in front of the apartments, and a loud thud that sounded like someone falling against the wall. Now Ugg had been stabbed three times, twice in the chest, puncturing his lung, and once in his neck, which served as his fatal wound. Not only had it severed his carotid artery, resulting in him bleeding out in less than two minutes, but it also nicked his laryngeal nerve, paralyzing his vocal cords and making

him unable to call for help. He also had what looked like a defense wound on his forehead. I mean, this is a lot. So the fact that he wasn't able to call for help, I think is a lot so the fact that uh... the fact that he wasn't able to call for help i think says a lot because i know the neighbors had reported that they didn't hear any screaming or any calls for help at all now this explains why i don't know why

but also the fact that they're hearing the doors open and close that's a big deal then he hearing somebody running down the stairs and this is all at the same time that his charge cord is ripped from his computer, which kind of leads me to feel like a potential struggle in sued. And he gets stabbed in the neck and the chest. So it seems this all happened very quickly. Now, the blood droplets started on the front steps where they were spotted by his neighbor and then they led into the house going into the blood-spattered kitchen and then ending in the living room where he collapsed next to the coffee table, leaving a puddle

underneath him as well as bloody handprints and smears on the wall. So this was quite the gruesome scene. And now this is a very important detail because this means that the stabbing had to have occurred outside his home. Meaning he ran back inside his home where he collapsed. Exactly. Bloody shoe prints consistent with what Ugg had been wearing

also followed the trail of blood he left leading into the living room. His phone was sitting untouched on the coffee table and perhaps he was too in shock to call 911 or he didn't know where he'd left it, but this was a big part of the investigation too because police wondered why didn't he try to call for help if this was a murder, but again like I just said, maybe he didn't know where it was or he couldn't reach it. Well, and at this point, his, I mean, if he did call, he wouldn't be able to say anything because, you know, he's suffering severe stab wounds right now. Yeah.

Also near his body were his laptop and notebook, but there was no suicide note written or anything close to one, though he did philosophize in his notebook shortly before his death quote, Before that quick break, we were discussing how the path of Ugg's blood can lead us to more answers about his fate. While police claimed that there were no signs of a struggle, there was broken glass and an empty wine bottle found near his body. His watch was also broken and his TV was overturned. Again, signs of a struggle. Right.

Detectives were never able to locate a murder weapon, but they did come up with two options. Either he had walked outside, stabbed himself and thrown the knife before walking back inside, locking the deadbolt, and then collapsing on the floor, or he had walked back inside, and using the two or fewer minutes that he had left as he was bleeding out, washed the blood and tissue off of the 5-inch knife that he then deposited in the sink. Which why would somebody do that? It just sounds like a very strange way to kill yourself. I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

This is just not adding up for me. I fully agree. So Dr. Azar's initial report stated that there were two knives found on the scene that could have been the murder weapon. Both were five inches long. One was serrated and one was not. The serrated knife had been discarded on the counter. The knife deposited in the sink that was not serrated was clean, but was in the sink among

dirty dishes. Prompting the police to believe that UG had cleaned it himself in his final moments. They had both knives tested, and the initial medical examiner's report stated that there were traces of blood and tissue on the knife in the sink, but there are also sources that say that was found to be untrue. So to say the investigation was sloppy would be an understatement. So let's talk about Ugg's watch. His watch was found off his wrist, broken, and underneath his collapsed body with DNA that did not match his.

But the watch was never tested. So that's a big mess up right there. I agree. And get this, there were strands of hair stuck in Oog's hand. That had also not been tested. Oh, that's the hell, right? Why would you not, yeah, that's a big problem here. Like if his watch is broken, again, this, to me, this indicates a struggle.

The TV zone overturned, there's blood everywhere. He's clearly like struggling about, you know? But due to the droplets of the blood, I know police had leaned more towards suicide again because they they had felt that he wasn't moving around the room very quickly based on how or the size of the drops, but that doesn't mean that you're not struggling. Like for all we know, he had gotten into a struggle and then he went and locked the door and just unfortunately passed away after that. Yeah, I mean, it's possible that the reason like you're correct, the reason why that door may have been locked is because he didn't want whoever was trying to kill him to come back.

Yeah, come back in. So that makes a lot of sense. Lock the door to stay safe. I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me. So I mean, I think the whole thing with the broken watch, it's off of his wrist and broken and under his body. Why would it have come off if he were to have done this to himself? And the unknown hairs. Why would there be hair in his hand? That's such a huge piece to me.

So and the fact that they didn't test them, I think they were just lazy honestly. This is such BS. So it took police four months to check the contents of his phone and computer, which offered plenty of time for someone to clean up any trail of evidence they left behind. And like you just said, Heath, a big talking point was the fact that both the front and back doors were locked. Now, the front door dead bolted after Uggs had come back inside, likely to separate himself from whatever predator was on the other side.

That makes the most sense. But police said that that is further evidence pointing toward his wounds being self-inflicted because they're thinking, oh, well, the doors were locked, meaning nobody could have come inside. Just opinion, I don't agree at all. I don't, I understand in a way why you would say that. And this reminds me of another case that I don't remember the name of, of course. But just because the door is locked

doesn't mean somebody wasn't in there before the door got locked, you know? Right. But Melissa said that the back door just had a button lock. So someone easily could have fled out the back and locked it behind them. I don't know why someone would do that, but it is possible.

Now it has been positive that it may have been a cover-up for someone on the inside. Like it may have been politically motivated. SFPD didn't want to spark an international incident by being at odds with the police force of a foreign citizen and justifying it as a suicide made it easier to keep them at bay. Of course, this is just speculation,

but it also could have been because their crime rate was so high that it was beneficial to keep this out of their statistics. Because in 2007, San Francisco County had the highest homicide rate in the state. And yet, it's also the smallest. So it's a highly populated area with just a lot of crime and a lot of homicides. Well, exactly. So at its highest rate in seven years, it may have been advantageous for police to rule one of almost 100 murders as suicide, like maybe the police wanted a conclusion and not an

answer, which we do see in other cases. Yeah, we absolutely have seen that before. And also while this may be nothing, it's also worth noting that chief investigator detective Cassias and medical examiner Dr. Venus Azar were dating at the time that the investigation was ongoing, so the best kind of sign there. Yeah, it doesn't, that just maybe doesn't look good. Right. There were also no witnesses and no other victims, but no matter which way you look at it,

it seems like neither Ugg nor his case has gotten fair and just treatment whatsoever. So here are all the theories that have circulated since Ugg's passing, none of which have been substantiated, but all of which, I guess, are plausible. It could have been his coworker and friend Neil. They had been together that night, he could have followed him home, jealous of his promotion and possibly killed him that way. I don't really buy this one honestly. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know a lot about Neal, but they seem like good pals. It also may have been a spurned lover, you know, like a crime of passion or a spiteful ex. Someone he'd been on a date with, perhaps even the date from that night, whom he'd rejected and was seeking revenge. Along those lines, it could be someone whose wife or girlfriend Uke had slept with, or been out with, knowingly or not, and the husband or boyfriend had it out for him. Maybe he invited someone over from the bar, or from a website that night, and it was just a hookup

gone wrong, or possibly a catfish who posed online as someone else and attacked him after being invited over for the night. I think that kind of sounds like an interesting theory because we know that he was on the these dating websites that night, but it also kind of seems like maybe he was in for the night, like he had made himself some rice and peas. He was just chilling out in his apartment. It was also like 2 a.m. So maybe he had given his address previously.

It's really hard to say, especially since police didn't look on his computer for four freaking months. Yeah, definitely. And we also don't know, like, if Ugg had any known enemies, like we just, that's information that I- Because police didn't look into it. Right, that's my point, is like we just don't know, you know. But his friend Neil even mentioned Ugg being embroiled in some ongoing trouble with a

woman. And he was this bachelor, you know, so it seems like he was dating different women and he had made that potential, or potentially not, joke, about going to find a woman to sleep with that night. But we don't really know if he did end up doing that. But we know that because of the surveillance footage that is very spotty and, you know, not the best, he was by himself. And I think him making himself some food and perusing dating websites, it kind of proves

to me that he was more than likely alone that night. It kind of backs up that theory, maybe. Right. But I also think that between the untested hair in his hand and the unknown male DNA at the scene, though we know DNA is pretty easily spreadable. So it could also not be related to me. It still just points to a murder. And I don't want to say that the cause of death was to gruesome to be a suicide because people sadly do all kinds of things, but it really does seem like he was just enjoying a late-night snack and hanging out on his computer when someone with bad intentions entered his apartment.

And also the footsteps running down the stairs, I mean, come on. Yeah, it seems like this was like an attack and then a flee. Yeah, he wasn't running down the stairs. We know that because he was bleeding out in his apartment. There wasn't blood found down on the stairs. They were found outside his door. So who was running down the stairs then if he committed suicide?

Sure, yeah. And why would there be blood outside? Did he kill himself inside of his apartment? Then walk outside as he's bleeding and then walk back in? Because there is blood found outside of his apartment. Right. Just so many questions here.

Sorry, we're just over over here, you know. It's, I mean, it's speculating. A perplexing case. It really is. And, you know, with cases like this, it's hard not to speculate because it's just, it's just so strange. Yeah, I agree. And as you said earlier, Hayes Valley was a little bit seedyer back then, but it was also

known at that time to be filled with like budding families and working artists. But the nearby Tenderloin and Mission Neighborhoods had large homeless encampments. So less than three years after Ugg's death, a local homeless man named Edward Holloway was convicted of murdering an innocent stranger. So could this have been a random act of violence from someone who lived in an encampment nearby, or even, I don't know, Edward himself potentially? Like it may also have been someone who followed him home to rob him, and maybe that's why his watch was found broken and off beneath his body, but there was nothing else missing from the apartment, so I don't really go to robbery. I do. I did have that theory, but here's my thought on that. So I do get you on the fact that the watch was found not on his wrist and underneath his body.

That's definitely seems like it could have been a robbery. And potentially, if this person did follow him home, we also did mention that you don't have to go through a lobby to get to his apartment. It's just his apartment door is right there on the street. Right there, yeah. So if somebody saw him coming home late at night, might have been opportunistic to jump inside, attack him, and try to steal what he could. Absolutely.

But maybe Oog had made enough commotion, and that kind of freaked out the robber, and then they just took off before they could actually steal anything. That's a good point. Plus, we also don't know if somebody did or did not steal something. Right, well police did. That was one of the things that they were looking for. Was this robbery motive that made them lean more to suicide as well because it didn't appear that anything was taken. But it also don't know how police would know that. You know? Sure, yeah yeah like maybe you ask people

You ask somebody to go throughout the house is anything missing? No, but how would you really know everything that he had in his apartment if he lived alone? Yeah, yeah, definitely and you know continuing on here I think Suck more theories this is probably the wildest theory that we've heard This is probably the wildest theory that we've heard About this case and it's that Melissa herself having second thoughts about their breakup and jealous that he was moving on and dating other people Could have been potentially behind this right, but she was all the way home on the east coast

In New York at the time of the murder so I really don't see how this would even i mean this is just how would you achieve such a thing yeah it's just completely outlandish to to even go there but there is one article out there on the internet that's dedicated to justifying molasses involvement the late great michelle macnamara was an author whose blog true crime diary became her, became her book, Albegon in the Dark. Which I'm sure a lot of you guys have read. Yeah, a lot of you guys know this book, and then became the basis for the conviction of the Golden State Killer. A year after Ugg's death, she interviewed Melissa for her blog, and Melissa told her quote,

�I miss him, can you tell?� She called him the love of her life. So take that how you will, but Melissa was never investigated for her potential involvement. Though she was awarded the James Madison Freedom of Information Citizen Award from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for her consistent work on UG's case. Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of why I don't think she was involved because they were still such good friends. And because of her, Ugg's case gained more attention online because she really

pushed his case on Facebook, which at that time was brand new, as well as a blog she created specifically for the case called Justice for Ugg, Justice for All. Also his neighbor, Christoph, was just as outraged about how police handled the case. So he was right alongside her, getting their friend's story out there, fully believing he was murdered. And Melissa also shared her thoughts

on why she believes it was not a suicide, other than the crime scene details, including that he loved being a part of the Hayes Valley community but was incredibly excited to work towards saving to buy that house in Buenos Aires, and he also loved being a bachelor. Melissa Nick stated, quote, I think about the person who did it and what kind of pain and suffering he must be carrying around with him for having murdered somebody. And that's not about Hayes Valley, that's about an individual who's really struggling.

Ugg had a joy for life and learning, and he was a huge flirt. Journalist Joe Eskenazi summed it up very well when he said quote, As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to theorize that someone stabbed himself multiple times, then cleaned up the knife and threw it away. This is something that needs to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even Dr. Azar wouldn't label the case definitely one way or the other, remarking that it really didn't make sense to call it a suicide or a murder. At this point, the case is officially ruled as undecided,

though authorities still lean toward it being a suicide. And sadly, just to help show you guys how bad the investigation was, in the city of San Francisco at this time in 2007, out of 98 murders, only a third were being solved, whereas the national average was just over half being solved. So I really think that had something to do with them believing it was a suicide. I really think they got lazy and they're like, we have way too much on our hands.

Like maybe a ball. Like maybe a ball. Like maybe a ball. Like maybe a ball. Like maybe a ball. much on our hands. Like maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball.

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Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. Maybe a ball. there were photos being taken about every five seconds. So technically somebody could have been on the footage, but just missed when the camera took a photo.

Sure, yeah. But we also have to remember this was only one camera from one angle that didn't even show his apartment door. So somebody could have entered from the other side of the street and left the same way, not passing that camera. Yeah. So originally when I was looking into this,

I was like, oh my god, he was a non-surveillance footage. Well, that's a little weird. No, it's not because this was one camera, one photo every five seconds, one angle, not even showing his front door. Yeah, I completely agree. So going back to the French authorities that actually came to San Francisco to investigate this. So the French authorities that actually came to San Francisco to investigate this so the French authorities investigation resulted in a two thousand page

report that officially ruled it a homicide however it was never released publicly the day-louc pauses private investigator john murphy also maintained that it was undoubtedly a homicide so that's what's frustrating to, there's a private investigator saying this was 100% a murder. The French police are saying this.

The French police are saying this is a murder and the San Francisco police are like, nah, we just think it's probably a suicide. Yeah. And for years, Marais and Francois traveled back to the United States every year to find answers and went home empty handed each time.

And this June will mark 15 years since UG's untimely passing and we're still no closer to learning what happened. Who did this and why? There's a Facebook page called Coalition for Justice as well as a website which is uggdalaplaza.blogspot.com dedicated to spreading awareness and information about ugg's case. Ugg's parents, Marais, and Francois are still offering a $100,000 reward for any information that leads to the arrest of his murderer. So please, if you guys have any information about this case, please call 1-800-989-7551. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. I really wanna know what you guys think because just why- So do I! It's just boggling my mind. You know, it's just so split, you know. It's undecided. I mean, I know there's probably a group of you out there

who believe it was suicide and that's totally fine. I personally don't. I think it's clear-cut, murder, and I think it's so despicable that Oog does not have justice. But let's have a conversation about it. Let's talk. So please check out our social medias. Like we mentioned earlier, we're on Instagram at Going West Podcast, Twitter at Going West

Pod. We're on Facebook. We have the Going West True Crime Group, but then we have the private group that Heath and I jump in on. And you can post in that group, it's going west discussion group. Just look that up, join and we'll approve you guys and you can post and we can just get talking about this. So thank you guys so much for tuning in, hope to hear from you about this case and everything else and on Friday we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into.

Hey, that's my line. You didn't say it. I know. Also, we do have a Patreon. If you guys want some extra episodes of Going West, we do cover international cases over there on Patreon. So, if that interests you, please head over there. It's patreon.com slash going west podcast. Alright. Alright, everybody. Alright. So, for everybody out there in the world, don't you be a stranger. Thank you. you