RedHanded - Episode 299 - La Maison de L'Horreur: The Dupont de Ligonnès Family Murder

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

When five members of the cheery, churchgoing Dupont de Ligonnès family were found dead at their home in Nantes – buried in the garden with small Catholic relics – a million questions erupted from neighbours, family and friends.But for the police, only one question mattered: where was the sixth? Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was nowhere to be found. And as they dug into his past, they uncovered a story that’s obsessed the nation of France for years: one of an ancient aristocratic dynasty, of international espionage, and a crime scene that, decades later, still refuses to add up…See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. I forgot how we did it again. I mean, it's a mystery. No one knows anymore.

But you are here. We are here. Hannah's new dog, Mabel, is here. Mabel is here. In the studio. Being particularly well behaved. She's so well behaved. If there is a jump in the recording, it's probably because she's done a shit on me.

Excellent news. Well, let's hope that that isn't what happens. So far, so good. We're going to be speaking a lot of French today. Excellent news. Well, let's hope that that isn't what happens. So far, so good. We're going to be speaking a lot of French today. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Be kind.

Only one of us in this room has a French GCSE and it's the doc. I've always been so terrible at French. And it was 12 years ago. Yeah, right. No, it's just never

really agreed with me. So be kind, whatever that is in French. On the 21st of April 2011, police arrived at a house in a middle-class neighbourhood of Nantes, a city in northwest France. The officers were responding to a missing persons report, or should we say six missing person reports, because the home that they were called to belonged to the Dupont de Ligionnesse family and all six of them had seemingly vanished into thin air. I do enjoy as soon as you say a French word, it goes into like proper like en français.

En français. En français. Now, this visit on the 21st of April wasn't the first time that the police had made a trip to the family's home. Ten days before, they'd been tipped off by a concerned neighbour. But when they searched the place, it was completely spotless. Just as it had been the last five times they'd been called out to investigate, all investigators had found were a series of strange and confusing letters, announcing both a spontaneous move to Australia and a witness protection relocation programme in the US.

Presumably, if you are going into witness protection, they don't send you a letter that you then leave magneted to your fridge door, but sure. But now, the police were back because family pressure from the remaining DuPont de Ligonnès bunch made them determined to find something, anything, that would explain what the hell was going on. A family of six can't just disappear without leaving a single trace. And the police were right. Because this time, at last, the eerily calm house would finally reveal its secrets. Under a terrace, to the back of the house,

one investigator uncovered a buried bin bag wrapped in tape, and inside, he could see a human foot. So naturally, they kept digging, and investigators found another body. And another. Until five members of the Dupont de Légionne family had been found. Investigators even found the body of... I'm going to cover Mabel's ears.

The bodies of the family's two black Labradors. But there was someone still missing. Xavier du Pointe de Ligonnès, the patriarch of the murdered family who were in bin bags. His wife and four children had all been killed and buried in their own home. But he was nowhere to be found. Over the next decade, this case would become a French national obsession. Not least because the DuPont de Ligonnès family, although considered by everyone who knew them to be

thoroughly normal down to earth middle class, they were in fact part of an aristocratic lineage that stretched back for centuries and somehow escaped the revolution. What else would you say is a French national obsession? Other than being obsessed with the DuPont de Ligonnès case. Hating the British. Pretending like they can't speak English. Yes. I would say football is a French national obsession.

I would say... If only they would stop being so fucking good. I know. Give us a break, France. Let someone else have a go. And I would say being French above all else. Yes. Oui, oui, oui.

Oui, oui. Mais oui. Do you know, I've never fully understood this, but in France, I think this is specifically a Parisian thing. You can be like, oh, like, do you want to come to the park? And someone would be like, moi, which means like, I don't want to, but I've got nothing else to do. I know. Why would you say that? Interesting which means like i don't want to but i've got nothing else to do i know why would you say that interesting yeah i don't know it's like it's not like a full

yes it's like sure sure my french ex-boyfriend explained it as yes with a drop of no interesting interesting i also think like when they say i say it's like quite but i think that means like a lot as well like the america or maybe i'm confusing it because the americans definitely do this. When they say it's quite good, they mean it's really good. Very good. Whereas we mean less than good.

Yes. What the fuck do I know? Only everything about this case. So let's continue. So yes, aristocratic they were. Their bloodline included every type of fancy French guy imaginable. There's musketeers, high-ranking bishops,

and lots more hoity-toity dignitaries with ruffs and pointy shoes. Very...'s musketeers, high-ranking bishops, and lots more hoity-toity dignitaries with ruffs and pointy shoes. Very through musketeers. D'Artagnan? Is he a musketeer? Yes. Yes. Very D'Artagnan. Mm-hmm. And the title of Count, now held by Count Xavier Pierre-Marie Dupont de Ligonnès, had been passed from heir to heir for more than six centuries. Oh, wow. That's impressive.

Yeah, especially when there's a big head chopping right in the middle of that. That's another French national obsession. Chopping their heads off. I wonder if they got Scarlet Pimpernel'd. Maybe, maybe. So yes, he's a fucking count. So when you chuck in a whole entire murdered family, including four kids, a missing count, and all of the mysterious

letters, sightings, very, very strange blog posts and crackpot theories that we're about to cover, of course, everyone was and is obsessed. So let's get into it. Count Xavier was born in January 1961 in Versailles, obviously. And Versailles, of course, you already know, is the city surrounding the bonko opulent palace of Louis XIV. I have to say here that as we go through the next portion of the story, it really feels like we're talking about old and tiny shit. 1961, that is like when my dad was born. Like he's a couple of years younger than that.

But like, just keep that in the back of your head. This is not pasto, it just feels pasto. As I was reading it, when we did the script, I was like, when did this happen? Not that long ago. So the French, as we have discussed at length already, revolutioned the bejesus out of their gilded overlords. However, Versailles has managed to stay the home of historic,

aristocratic French families ever since it was built. And Xavier grew up knowing what it meant to have a dynasty on your shoulders. In the early 80s, as a sexy 20-year-old French counten waiting, Xavier met the 16-year-old Agnès Rodagny. Agnnes was buttoned up and traditional and just wanted a simple life. Xavier on the other hand wanted to see the world. So he left Agnes to go travelling and when he got back to sweep her off her feet she was pregnant with somebody else's baby. But Xavier didn't care. He turned on that aristocratic charm that no one can do quite as well as the French. And soon enough, he and Agnes were married. Now, marrying someone out of wedlock who has a child from a previous relationship

may not sound like that big a deal to many of us. But if you're old school French aristocracy, it's monocle-dropping madness. And if you're Catholic French aristocracy, well's monocle-dropping madness. And if you're Catholic French aristocracy, well, sacre bleu. And even more dramatic than just marrying Agnes, Xavier actually adopted the baby and gave him the family name, Myrte. So you're starting to get an idea of the kind of roguish, untraditional kind of count that Xavier wanted to be. He and Agnes left Versailles and eventually ended up in Nantes. Nantes itself is a peaceful city of culture and it's slap bang between the rolling wine country of the Loire

Valley and the rural tranquility of Brittany. The city is known for its progressive outlook, super-slick public transport, and top rankings when it comes to quality of life. Our executive producer here, Mr Alex Briand, his dad actually gave us a review of Nant and said, quote, it's full of old, tight-arsed aristocratic families. So don't come for us, come for Luke. So this aristocratic monocle-dropping pair set up home at 55 Schumann Boulevard, the

home where Agnes and her four children would eventually be found dead. And that house gained the grim nickname Maison Derriere. Putting the spring in Springfield. No, I'm kidding. They called it the Maison de l'Or. Make of that what you will. Obviously, that's after they find the bottom. They just move in and they're like, oh, no, not there.

But back then, pre-2011, there was really nothing too remarkable about the house and the family lived a pretty regular, un-aristocratic life. To really drive that normalcy home, Xavier started a string of extra-boring business ventures, like a sales company and then another sales company and then an online business that catered to other sales companies. Le yawn. Agnes worked as a teaching assistant in a local Catholic school. She ran a Bible study group and she went to Mass every single goddamn Sunday.

As for the kids, the eldest, 21-year-old Arthur, went to a private Catholic college. Thomas, 18, was shy and musically gifted. Anne, 16, was the family's best student with lofty ambitions and a side hustle modelling for department store catalogues. And she also went to a private Catholic school with Benoit, the youngest. They were as normal as normal could be in the town of Nantes

and had been for years. The mildest of oddness only began on the 4th of April 2011 when the youngest kids, Anne and Benoit's, school got a phone call. The two kids, the caller said, were sick and wouldn't be coming in that day. But that night, Xavier's sister spoke to him on the phone for over an hour. And he said that the family had all been out for dinner and to a movie together, and that everything was just magnifique in DuPont land.

So, unusual if two of the youngest kids didn't go to school that day because they were too sick, but, like I said, the mildest of oddness. And then that same night, neighbours remember that the dogs, the ones that were tragically later found dead, who had been barking for hours, suddenly went silent. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+.

In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy

and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose,

it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace. From law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall

of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. A week later, a letter arrived at Anne and Benoit's school, once again explaining why the two children were absent. But this time, they weren't just off sick. The letter said that their remaining tuition had all been paid off and the whole family was moving to Australia. And the letter said that that was because of an urgent work issue. The Catholic school where mum Agnes worked also got a letter, apparently signed by her. This letter detailed the same plan to take the whole family down under. But on

the same day, another set of letters spun an entirely different story. These letters, which were typed, not handwritten, were sent to nine members of Xavier's family and said that the family was actually going to the US of A, because Xavier was a spy. Classic. He wrote that he'd been a DEA informant, keeping a lid on the drugs and money laundering going down in French nightclubs. And now the jig was up. So they were going into witness protection. They couldn't say where, and the family wouldn't hear from them again. But he insisted if anyone asks, say we went to Australia. The tone of the writing definitely seemed to them like Xavier's. But even if all of this was true, even if any of this was true,

would Agnes really have left with all of the children without saying a word to her own family? Because Agnes' parents and her family don't get any letters, typed or handwritten, explaining what's going on. That same day that the letters arrived, Estelle Chapon, the Ligonnès' next-door neighbour, walked past the house and was surprised to see all of the shutters were closed. This was unusual because the shutters on the house were always left wide open even when the family were away on holiday. She also spotted a note on the front door which just read, please return all correspondence to sender, thank you. It was then

that Estelle realised that it had been a while since she'd seen any of the Ligoness bunch, which was weird because with the four kids the house was usually buzzing with activity. Estelle also noticed that Agnes' car was still out front, which was odd since there was no way the whole family plus the two dogs could all have left in Xavier's Citroen C5. The whole thing just didn't sit right. And two days later, still not having seen a single wisp of them, Estelle went to the police. Officers arrived at the house that very same afternoon, and they were suspicious enough to call a locksmith to let them in.

Once they got inside, though, everything was calm. No one was home, but even after a thorough search, everything else seemed pretty normal. Apart from a few empty frames missing their photographs, nothing was out of place. Over the next six days, pressed by close family and friends, investigators returned to the house again and again. But the more they discovered, the less it all made sense. For example, no plane or train tickets had been booked in the family's name

and their bank accounts had all been suddenly closed. And so, on the 19th, a formal investigation into the disappearance of the family was launched. Two days later, on the morning of the 21st of April 2011, Nant District Attorney, another Xavier, Xavier Ronson, held a press conference about the case.

And he was in the middle of explaining some of the concerning evidence, when mid-sentence, he was interrupted by a phone call. He came back and told reporters that the press conference was over. Because on their sixth visit to the house, investigators had uncovered those bin bags wrapped in tape under the porch. And obviously after they continued digging, they had found five human corpses and two dogs,

all wrapped in blankets and covered in quicklime to mask the smell. And unusually, each one of the family and covered in quicklime to mask the smell. And unusually, each one of the family had been buried with a small religious icon, like a candle or a cross, as though to imitate like a Catholic burial. Weird. And I guess like some people take from this that either the killings are like, I don't know, religiously motivated. Or is it a show of like remorse or affection for the victims because they're trying to bury them in a way that is respectful of their religious beliefs?

But it seems very tenuous. It could be. Or it could just be a red herring. Agnes and the four children had all been shot in the back of the head, with two bullets from a long.22-caliber rifle. They were also all in their pyjamas, suggesting that, like so many before them, they had died in their beds. Evidence of sleeping pills were found in the system of all of the children. No drugs were found in Agnes,

but she did have a sleep apnea machine that helped her sleep. Have you ever seen a sleep apnea machine? I have. No snorkel. Yeah, no snorkel, definitely. And I wonder, like, I was trying to look up like how noisy they are, but like, is that why she doesn't hear the killer coming? Because she's the only one that hasn't got any drugs in her system? I don't know. But I think the lack of drugs in her system probably suggests that she was the first to be killed because she would have woken up otherwise. Well, yeah, I don't know how loud the machine is, but I can tell you they're a damn sight fucking quieter than someone with sleep apnea. Oh, this is very true. This is very true. I will take the sleep apnea machine, please. No, I'm a very light sleeper and fucking hell, snoring just makes me want to tear my face off

I am not a light sleeper but I once shared a bed with someone who had a no snorkel and they didn't wear it and I did not sleep at all not once oh god it was awful and I was trying to like voice note it to like send to my friends because I'm like you're not going to believe how loud this person is I know it's It's too much. It's too much. Anyway. And like sleep apnea is so dangerous. Oh yeah, it's really, really scary. So yeah, don't be afraid of the no snorkel. Snork away. So this whole scenario seemed just as odd as everything else to do with the case.

If the family were all shot with a rifle in the middle of the night, how had none of the neighbours reported hearing anything? Well, you can stick a dainty French pin in that for now. A hat pin, possibly. A barrette pin. A barrette. A barrette. A beret pin.

I've been listening to the Americans, because they call it like a little bobby pin, a barrette. Yes, they do, yeah. And like, yeah. I'm confused, guys. I'm still asking for the check in restaurants. I'm still asking for La Quenta. There's something else extra strange that we need to address first and foremost. And since you're all very clever little saucissons,

you might be thinking, if the family was shot in the head with a rifle while sleeping, that sounds like there would be a pretty big mess left behind. How the hell did the police miss evidence of such a bloodbath in the six times they searched the Ligonier's home? Well, bon poids. But no, the police hadn't just missed a bunch of blood-spattered pillows. There was no trace of blood anywhere in the entire house. So that means five people and two dogs had been killed in one night and no one heard anything and not a speck of blood had been left behind. The police couldn't find any DNA or fingerprints in the house, which, for a house in which they live, is pretty suspicious.

And yes, of course, the one family member made very conspicuous by his absence was, of course, the patriarch Xavier de Pont de Ligonnès. Because yes, being MIA after your entire family turns up murdered definitely makes you suspect nombre un. But there was zero physical evidence actually tying Big X to the murders. He had no criminal history whatsoever and showed absolutely no signs of being capable of such a horrific and calculated slaying of his own family. Xavier didn't even sound like one of those uber charismatic but actually very sinister psychopaths. He was just a regular guy who loved his family. His extended family paint him as a warm, affectionate, caring person.

And by all accounts, Agnes and the kids were everything to him. And also, and this is very important given the context of this particular case, they were his legacy. Killing your heirs is an unfathomable move in aristocracy land. So Xavier just didn't seem the type. But he was the only survivor and had seemingly fled. So the police started digging and it didn't take them too long

to get under that groovy count facade. And this is the thing, whether he did it or not, whether he's fled or he's been abducted, tracing him and tracking him is the only way they can get any answers. So when they start digging, the first thing to go was Xavier's reputation as a successful businessman. Xavier's sales ventures were not doing well.

And debtors had come a-knocking. He owed a lot of people a lot of money. Le classique, cause... Si. Si. Oui. Oui. In the early 2000s, the dawn of le Internet.

Oh, they don't say that, do they? They have that council where they're not allowed to use English words in France, so, like, they don't say computer, they say ordonnateur. And I'm sure they have one for the internet as well. Let me google it while you continue Oh no, internet is le internet. Ah well fucking you know, pick a side France, you know

Anyway Horizon chasing Xavier in the 2000s decided to move his whole family to Florida. Though they do say wifi instead of wifi So did the Spanish. Yeah. But I think the French do it for malicious reasons.

In February 2003, Xavier registered one of his boring companies in the US and gave it a super slick Y2K name, NetSurf Concept LLC. Consultio, consultius, anyone?

But, instead of the sun-soaked American dream Xavier was picturing, like most things he touched, it all fell apart pretty quickly. And when the family were all out of dollar bills, the Ligones flew back to Nantes, and it was the start of a downward spiral that set Xavier heading straight for financial ruin. As late as the 5th of April 2011,

the same day that the police believe the entire family was killed, a man turned up to the family home to collect a debt worth thousands. With the bailiffs on his back and no way out, could Xavier have reached the end of the road? Could he have killed his entire family to save them from a future of shame? On top of a shady financial past, investigators also found a string of interesting purchases. In the weeks before the murders, Xavier had bought a new shovel, a hoe, some cement, a load of bin bags, landscaping tiles, grout and quicklime.

As for where in the world Xavier was, we'll come back to that. But just before we start chasing this guy across the French countryside, let's take a little look at what the police found out about the rest of the family. For example, they found out the 21-year-old Arthur, the eldest, hadn't been to uni since the 1st of April that year, so for at least a month before the bodies were found. As for 18-year-old Thomas, he'd been seen at a restaurant on the 4th of April, so like two days before the family vanish. And in this restaurant, he was very classically Frenchly, tucking into some pâté with his father.

But witnesses said that the two of them barely spoke. The last person to see Thomas alive was a friend who'd been hanging out with him on the 5th. And according to this friend, that day Thomas had suddenly got a call from his father telling him his mother had been in a serious bike accident and to come home immediately. Thomas' friends then text him over the next few days

and got increasingly strange responses. Firstly, the text said that he was sick and he wasn't coming out. Then eventually, the text said that his phone was dying and that his dad needed to get him a charger. Very strange. And that was the last text anyone got from 18-year-old Thomas' phone. As for Anya, she'd recently made a string of slightly telling posts on the psychology forum of a health website called Doctissima.

Excellent. And we've got a selection for you. Here's the first one. My husband is very old-fashioned in his way of being in the family. The father is the boss. He gives an order. We execute it without question or understanding. Period.

She also wrote about serious money worries. Said that she was in need of, quote, everything. Tenderness, love, mutual friends, sex. Everything. She also wrote that she had grown worried about his increasingly dark and cryptic statements like, if we were all dead, that might be for the best. And lastly, we have to meet the other Count Dupont de Ligonnès, Xavier's dad. He died

in the January of that same year, nothing suspicious, just a heart attack. But afterwards, Xavier went round to clear out all of his father's belongings, and he made sure to recover the all-important family signet ring. He also was keeping an eye out for any family money squirrelled away in his father's accounts. But no luck there either, because the last days of Xavier's father's life were spent in near poverty. And this fall from grace clearly had an effect on Xavier. He had to reckon with the crumbling state of his family's once-flourishing house. The other thing that had quite the effect on Xavier was the discovery of a.22-caliber long rifle. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal.

We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors

that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. Despite never particularly showing an interest in firearms before he found one in his dad's house, Xavier drove headfirst into his new hobby. He got a gun licence, he joined the local gun club, and he even took his sons down to the range for some target practice.

And this is all in the three months between his father's death and the death of his own family. Dun-dun-dun. And one day, Xavier's gun instructor remembered Xavier asking about silencers. Another. Dun, dun, dun. Can you put a silencer on a rifle?

Questions. Let's ask the internet. Yes, you can. Okay. So there you go. And then the next day, on the 12th of March, a month before his disappearance, Xavier bought a silencer to fit his long rifle. So perhaps a lack of gunshots isn't such a mystery after all. However, I will say I think silencers are a bit misunderstood. Like it's not silent. There's not like no noise.

No, I would also, the only thing I would say is like the dogs are barking and also they live in a very nice neighbourhood and possibly just enough for a silencer to do its job. Right. Now, with all that out of the way, let's cut to the chase. Thanks to some lovely detective work, police quickly got a pretty good timeline of Xavier's movements after the 10th of April. They could be pretty sure that that was the day he left Nantes, since his car was flashed by a speed camera in the nearby town of La Rochelle. He's not going to pay that. Yeah. Now that night, they also discovered that he checked into a hotel,

just six hours' drive away, under a fake name. Now how do we know that, if he used a fake name? Well, he used his own credit card. Cash, Xavier, come on. With his real name on it. So you're doing half the work. Yeah. But not enough of the work.

Now, the next day, he did the same thing, just in a different hotel. And then on the 13th, he then drove to the town where he and Agnes had lived before the kids came along. He even contacted an ex-girlfriend who was living there, but they didn't meet up. The following evening,

CCTV caught him finally taking some cash out of an ATM in a town a little further down the West Coast. He was checking into a Formulan hotel, and that is not Formula One hotel, it is also not Fa-Mulan hotel, as I want to say.

It's Formulan hotel. Which is kind of like a French equivalent of a holiday inn. And that was in the next town over from where he had stayed the previous evening. And basically, so on and so on, until the 15th of April. and that was in the next town over from where he had stayed the previous evening. And basically, so on and so on until the 15th of April. And that's when Xavier arrived in the incredibly hard to pronounce... I believe in you. ...Roch-Brunsour-Azan. Smashed it.

...Roch-Brunsour-Azan in the south-east of France. So what can we learn from all of this information? Well, it doesn't exactly scream murderer on the run. Xavier could have covered way more ground. The whole journey is only about a ten-hour drive, and he took five days to do it. He also could have avoided places that people might look for him. Instead, he took a very leisurely tour of the west and south coasts, through all of his old haunts,

and ending up in the picturesque Provence towns of Arles and Le Seine. Why would he do that? Well, it's been suggested that this journey was kind of a slow pilgrimage, a reminder of better times. But he made no effort to avoid cameras and used his credit card in every restaurant, hotel and shop on the way. Maybe he was expecting to have been caught by then. On the morning of the 15th of April,

he could be seen on a hotel camera walking across the Pham U Lan Wan car park. In the video, Xavier is holding a small bag, which looks stuffed with clothes, but also appears to have a long object stuffed inside it, stretching the fabric of the bag. So police concluded that Xavier was probably still carrying his father's rifle. After crossing the car park,

you can see on the CCTV footage that Xavier walked into the woods. And he has never been seen again. For weeks, police searched the many forests and mountains of the area. And most of those looking were expecting to find a body. Surely they all thought, after his winding, misty-eyed drive through the past, after apparently killing his whole family and walking off into the woods with a rifle, surely Xavier had gone into the wild to end his life. But week after week passed. Search parties

went through cave systems, abandoned mines, everything. They covered every inch of ground. There was no sign of a body. So people started to wonder, was the whole thing manufactured to throw police off the scent? All of this using your credit card, going to places where people would recognise you, getting caught on speed cameras, and then very obviously walking into the woods with what looks like a rifle in your bag, clearly on CCTV. Was this all just a plot? Had Xavier made the bodies of his family as hard as possible to find by burying them in the back garden, then staged his own suicide,

only to disappear in search of a new life? Well, you should probably know that for those looking to make a quick getaway, the small town that is those looking to make a quick getaway, the small town that is incredibly hard to pronounce, Rockbrunnsur-Azan, not far from Xavier's last known location, can be quite the transport hub. Towns nearby have small ports from where commercial and passenger boats go all over the world.

The Italian border is also just an hour's drive to the east. And on the train, you can get just about anywhere in Europe. But as you might have guessed the paper trail on Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès stopped where he was last seen on CCTV. Again no train or plane tickets were bought in his name and And nor were any cars rented. So, if he hadn't fled further afoot, because they can't find how he did that, if he hadn't killed himself, because they can't find the body, maybe Xavier had just stayed where he was.

It was the Côte d'Azur, after all, where more than 14 million tourists descend every year. Kind of makes it, all in all, not a bad place to disappear. Despite the lack of evidence that the police have found, later that year, a public appeal was made for information, and investigators were overwhelmed with tips. Xavier had been seen in 40 places around the world in just 48 hours. Stunning how that happens.

Sometimes he was alone alone and sometimes he was accompanied by a mysterious blonde woman. And we have to admit, one string that Xavier has to his bow is anonymity. He's just not that distinctive looking. Let's have a look. Yep. French man. Yep. Someone's dad. Someone's French dad. Someone's French dad. He could just grow a beard and disappear anywhere. And yeah, we've got another picture, which we'll link in the show notes, where he's just got shorter hair and a bit of a moustache and he looks completely different. And as we told you at the top of the show, this case is a national obsession in France

and sightings have flooded in thick and fast over the 12 years since Xavier disappeared. But nothing conclusive has ever come from them. And we're telling you that now because there were a few moments in the years after the killings where it seemed like Xavier had definitely been found. And we're not going to blueball you. He hasn't. He is still very much either dead or somewhere, somewhere over the rainbow. You didn't want to go for the out for the count joke? Oh, fuck. Just say it now.

We'll keep it all. He's very much still. Out for the count. There you go. So here goes. In 2015, police thought that they'd found Xavier's bones just 10 miles from that incredibly hard to pronounce town where he disappeared from. But a DNA test said otherwise. Then in 2018, police raided a monastery of silent monks after a tip-off swore that Xavier had been seen going all Frère Jacques up in the hills. And to be fair,

there was a monk there that looked quite a lot like Xavier, but no dice, just a monk. Then jumping ahead to 2019, police even got a call from Scottish investigators saying, definitively, we've found your man. And I can't do a Scottish accent, so I'm not going to. I think I remember this in the news. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Because it's not, again, this is not. It's 2019.

It's 2019. I was an adult woman. We, like, had started the podcast. So the police in Scotland had received a tip of a man flying from France to Scotland on a stolen passport. And they arrested him at Glasgow airport. And remarkably, his fingerprints were a match for Xavier's. But when the Scottish police sent the French police CCTV footage of a guy that looked absolutely nothing like Xavier French police asked for those fingerprints to be you know double checked just like a second opinion please yes please and um unfortunately on the second test it was revealed

that this was just a guy visiting his wife in Glasgow I don't know why he had a stolen passport but he has nothing to do with Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. Basically, that first fingerprint test had just been fucked up in Glasgow. Then, in 2020, when the Dupont de Ligonnès family story was taken up in the new Netflix series of Unsolved Mysteries, a brand new avalanche of tips came to the show's creators, who passed them all on to the police. And despite some strong leads, unfortunately nothing really changed.

But that's not where the story ends. There's one little tasty little crouton that we have been holding back. In 2015, a journalist for AFP, who was based in Nantes, received an envelope. It contained a photograph showing Xavier, Benoit and Arthur smiling at the camera. And this was pretty intriguing, because remember, photographs had been taken from the house and someone had left behind empty frames. and the photographs had never resurfaced. Written on the back of this photograph was a sentence that nobody expected to see.

It read, I am still alive from then until now. And it was signed, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. There were absolutely no traces of DNA or fingerprints on the photograph, and handwriting experts couldn't add anything conclusive either. So, without anything else to go on, the investigation just had to stay put. So it's time to ask the big question at the centre of this story.

Did Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès really kill his family? He is the best suspect. We know that family annihilators typically tend to be white men. They tend to use guns, and they usually have a secret that they are trying to hide, be it an affair or financial troubles. And this theory that Xavier did kill his entire family and then go on the run is the one that is most widely believed by the French. Especially since there was another very similar case that happened at around the same time, where the head of a French dynasty got himself into loads of debt

and basically killed his entire family to avoid destroying the family name. Now, some people challenge the idea of a family annihilation being the case here, because we do also know that these types of killers tend to kill themselves after they've killed their families. And obviously, we know that Xavier didn't kill himself, at least at the house. He may have done it somewhere else, but he definitely didn't do it at the house. And we don't have any proof that he is actually dead. And people also wonder here, if it was really about the debt,

could Xavier not just have disappeared without the murders and still got the same result if they were after him? But I don't really buy into that argument because family annihilators tend to kill to avoid shame. The shame that they'll bring on their families, the shame that they'll feel when their families find out that they fucked up. They also often believe that killing their families is something like a mercy killing because their wife and kids, of course, wouldn't be able to go on

having lost the lifestyle that they'd become accustomed to. But let's, to play devil's advocate for a moment, pretend that Xavier didn't do it. What could have happened? Well, we've got a blog apparently written in 2013 by Xavier's mother, brother and sister, and it includes some pretty interesting theories. Because Xavier's mother, brother and sister

are sure that the whole family is still alive. Because Xavier's mother, brother and sister are sure that the whole family is still alive. And here's why. At the time of the deaths, no member of the wider family was ever allowed to see the bodies or officially identify them, apparently due to the advanced state of decomposition. Then, less than two weeks after their discovery, all five bodies were cremated. Individual death certificates were made right on site, as soon as the bodies were taken from the ground. The family even claims that the details of the bodies were inconsistent. For example, the autopsy confused Thomas and Arthur, gave incorrect heights and weights, and said that Agnes was brunette when she had gone grey years before.

And they also said, the family that is, that things had been moved around inside the house after the original disappearance. They also claim that up to nine people saw Agnes alive after the date that she was supposed

to have been killed. So could the DEA letter have been true all along? Maybe the entire family had their murders staged so that they could all go into witness protection. Xavier's family certainly thinks so. But why wouldn't you do a body for him? Because he was the one that everyone was looking for. It's Christina Ricci for me.

I don't know. That's a T mattel joke sorry tricksy another thing that people always point to is the sheer amount of effort required to carry out this plan xavier had been seeing a doctor for his back pain for years it was well known by friends and family that he couldn't exert himself too much. Could he really have dug a mass grave with one shovel, moving over an actual ton of soil all by himself whilst crouching down under the terrace? Because yes, if you look at images of where the bodies were buried, it's definitely too narrow to stand up. But I do think if he has chronic back pain, that explains why he's not driving 10 hours in

one go. Well, quite. But I'm suspending my disbelief. Could Xavier have really murdered five people without spilling a single drop of blood? He had no criminal record. He's only just got his gun license. So could he, with his dodgy back, have dragged all five bodies to the back of the garden in one night without any neighbors noticing? His family thinks he could not, which could be a fair point. But unfortunately, that's where we have to leave it today. That is, the fin of the Dupont de Ligonnère's mystery. There is still an international arrest warrant out there for Xavier. And maybe he's sunning himself in South America somewhere after staging the perfect crime.

Or maybe his remains are lying somewhere in an as-yet-unexplored part of Provence. Or maybe even he and his entire family did pull off a successful witness protection relocation plan and are now living their new lives somewhere in the States. Though I would argue if you were going to do that, I probably wouldn't leave so many fucking plot holes in this and an entire missing person that's going to keep everybody obsessed

with that case for decades to come. But the bottom line is, we may never know. I think I do know. I think I'm pretty convinced. I do think that Xavier killed his family yes but I don't know

where he is I think he probably got squirreled away somewhere and he's probably fine and alive I think he got scarlet pimpernel

that's what I think well there you go so that is it guys go check out this week's shorthand on Amazon Music and we'll see you next time for some other things hooray

bye We'll see you next time for some other things. Hooray! Bye! You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either. Until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows,

uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart.

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