), PS: no need to worry about the metal detector or the canoe, which can stay there (nor the rubble and the other mess piled up on the terrace, at the end of the garden and in the basement: that was all there when we moved in. Roquebrune-sur-Argens was surrounded by cliffs, mountains, and other crevices where it would be easy for a body to go undetected. We hope we haven't asked too much of any of you: Come and remove whatever is left at home by 31 May (the earlier, the better), We started sorting through things and giving stuff away (clothes, etc. Près de … Although his fingerprints at first appeared to be a match, DNA testing proved it was another case of mistaken identity, according to France24. ", A message to Xavier's mother and sister is sent from the family home's IP address. All the best, Xavier. [15] He earned a baccaleuréat in Science, Industrial Technology and Sustainable Development at the age of 20. Witnesses mentioned seeing Xavier loading things into his car in the week before he vanished, according to Europe 1. ): so you don't need to do any sorting, just throw everything out … or keep it for yourself if you want (electrical appliances, etc.). Born in Versailles, Xavier was raised in a strict, upper-class Catholic society that was well-to-do but also conservative and stuffy. "A partir de 2003, il est en perdition totale. It is not known who took and who sent the picture. [6], Xavier created several businesses with limited success, most of which catered to travelling salespeople and restaurant guests. [47][63] According to a source close to Xavier, he "never set foot inside a church". We hope it doesn't drag on for too many years. Investigators believe that Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès murdered his wife and three of his children on the night of 3 to 4 April, then murdered his son Thomas on the evening of 5 April. Here's the story (as least, as much as we're allowed to tell you. Anne, the only daughter, was a pretty and intelligent girl of 16, who modeled for mail-order catalogues part time while keeping up good grades at La Perverie, the private Catholic school she attended with Benoît, her younger brother, per O Magazine. Of course, we send all our love and are thinking of you very much during this enforced separation; We'll have so many stories to tell you later on! Shortly afterwards, he sees Xavier "putting large bags into his car", a. En avril 2011, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès assassinait sa femme et ses quatre enfants, avant de dissimuler leurs corps sous la terrasse de leur maison nantaise, et de prendre la fuite. A "wanted" notice is issued for the whole family. So we have been taken into the protective custody of the US Government and "transferred" to the US, and we have new identities, which must, of course, be kept secret. His wife Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and their four children, along with the family's two dogs, were murdered at an undetermined date in early April 2011, and their bodies were found buried in their garden on 21 April. Hélas, l’animateur des 12 Coups de midi s’est attiré les foudres des internautes à la suite de cette blague. The children's schools are aware, as are Arthur's and Thomas's landlords, and Agnès's and Arthur's employers. 1,400 people attended the funeral. Although the process lost the family a lot of money, they eventually settled down to what appeared to be a happy, quiet life in Nantes. Furthermore, my client confirms that the bodies' heights and weights do not correspond to the known dimensions of the family members. If possible, pursue Project Crystal: this could be a good project for Arthur, Laetitia's son, and maybe Edouard (and it would allow us to have a comfortable income when we return.). The school where Agnès worked received a similar message. "[87], According to Mr Goldenstein (the lawyer for Geneviève Dupont de Ligonnès, the suspect's mother; Christine, his sister; and Bertram de Verdun, Christine's husband): "We don't even know when the victims were killed. La femme de "l’ami impossible" de Bruno de Stabenrath a eu du mal à partir avec le célèbre baron à cause de son mari Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. Benoît Dupont de Ligonnès was born on 29 May 1997, Xavier and Agnès's youngest child. [10] Her friends became concerned when she was regularly offline and did not answer calls. Je m'abonne pour 1€ le premier mois In January of 2011, just three months prior to the murders, Xavier's father, the count Bernard-Hubert Dupont de Ligonnès, passed away. I am awake almost every night with these morbid ideas. The photograph was of two of the children, Arthur and Benoît, and had the note "I'm still alive" written on the back, along with the date of July 11th, 2015, and the name "Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès," per RTL. Thank you.". Police found Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès' car on April 22nd, just one day after discovering the bodies. This was revealed by the press on 5 May. She believes that "the information leaked to the media originates from sources with an interest in making the family disappear". [80] Suspecting that the passport may have been used by Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, the French authorities planned to be present at the boarding gate at Charles de Gaulle Airport for the Saturday flight to intercept the passenger and verify his identity. Le couple a en effet pris du … [16] He was passionate about music and studied it at the Catholic University of the West in Angers. The autopsy revealed all the children had been drugged with sleeping pills and then shot twice in the back of the head with a .22 long rifle, per The Local. Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès : 7 ans avant la tuerie, sa femme Agnès confiait son mal-être Les mots chocs de sa femme Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès suffisant et « vieux jeu » : … Huh?! [89], Police received more than 900 reports from people who believed they had spotted Xavier. An unsigned letter dated 11 April 2011, purportedly from Xavier, was received by Xavier's close relatives. Xavier checks out of the hotel, abandoning his car there. Anne Dupont de Ligonnès was born on 2 August 1994 in Draguignan. During the night of 21 to 22 April, the metallic-blue Citroën C5 with registration 235 CJG 44 is found in the car park of the Formula 1 Hotel in Roquebrune-sur-Argens by police equipped with an, Investigators turn towards a line of inquiry involving a, According to the autopsies, the victims were drugged and then shot dead with a. Xavier disappeared at the same time and has not been found. She provides photographs of the niche where the bodies were discovered and states that the space is 1.2 metres (just under 4 feet) high. ", "Les Inrocks – Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, la traque sur Facebook", "Les obsessions mystiques de Xavier de Ligonnès mises au Net", "Affaire Dupont De Ligonnès. In an act that defied conservative social norms, he married her anyway, and adopted the boy as his own. In 2005, Agnès even filed a police report against her husband for assaulting Arthur, her eldest son. LOL). On 2 May 2013, a search was carried out by 50 police officers and firefighters from a unit specialising in searching in dangerous and hard-to-access locations. The affair is based on the idea that Xavier Dupont killed his family before burying them. Xavier Pierre Marie Dupont de Ligonnès, the patriarch of the family, was a descendant of the old French aristocracy. He stayed for one night before continuing his journey, moving east to Vaucluse and staying the night of April 12th in the Auberge de Cassagne, according to Le Figaro. Xavier Pierre Marie Dupont de Ligonnès (born 9 January 1961 in Versailles) is the son of Bernard-Hubert Dupont de Ligonnès (7 November 1931 – 20 January 2011), an engineer with a degree from the École nationale supérieure de mécanique et d'aérotechnique in Poitiers; his mother was Geneviève Thérèse Maître. She was in the 11th grade following an academic curriculum in Science, and was described by her friends and relatives as a girl who shared her mother's religious beliefs and was considerate and approachable. Finally, it is surmised that due to the low headroom, the perpetrator would likely have both banged their head and rubbed their hair on the ceiling repeatedly, but no human skin cells, blood, or DNA were found there. On 1 May 2015, the RTL.fr website reported that "DNA obtained from the personal effects around the body discovered on the evening of 28 April in Bagnols-en-Forêt is not that of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, but that of another man whose identity is currently unknown. Inform Alain and other friends of our departure. The investigation has been running since 2011 and has led to more than 800 tips, as well as searches that have led to dead ends. This information was released to the media and the story received blanket news coverage in France. However, it was unsigned and contained few grammatical errors, which was unlike him, per RFI. Therefore, the situation has now become potentially dangerous for us here and has required us to take emergency measures. ), We had to give up the dogs: luckily, someone took both of them (so they won't be separated). Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès ne s’est pas contenté de tuer 5 personnes en fait, il a fait plus de mal que ça, il y a des proches qui ont énormément souffert ». Xavier continued travelling southeast the next day, spending the night of April 13th at a hotel in La Seyne-sur-Mer, west of Toulon. The picture shows two of the Dupont de Ligonnès children – Arthur, the oldest and Benoît, the youngest – sitting at a kitchen table. Their ancestors include Édouard du Pont de Ligonnès (1797–1877), who married Sophie de Lamartine, sister of the poet Alphonse de Lamartine and whose youngest son, Charles du Pont de Ligonnès, became the Bishop of Rodez. Furthermore, Christine claims that Xavier had neck and back problems and would not have been physically capable of such a task. The lease on the house had been terminated. "On apprend aussi quelque chose d'assez fort (...), c'est que Xavier Dupont de … [73] The prosecutor in Draguignan, Danielle Drouy-Ayral, stated "at this moment in time, it is not the body of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès", without providing any more details to explain this declaration. However, after a two-and-a-half-hour search, they determined that the reports were a case of mistaken identity, and the person believed to be Dupont de Ligonnès was a monk who bore a resemblance to him.[79]. ", "Man believed to be suspect in 2011 French family killing arrested in Scotland", "Guy Joao, un homme " banal " pris dans le chaos de l'affaire Dupont de Ligonnès", "Dupont de Ligonnès. ): the furniture to keep is in the living room (+ the wardrobe that has been taken apart in Arthur's bedroom and the desk in the laundry room), the rest can go to the dump: the nearest one is Ecopoint, 3 km from the house (open until midday on Sundays), EXCEPT the boxes pertaining to Project Crystal (maps, tickets, etc. [81] This was too late for the French authorities to go to the airport in Paris, so they asked their Scottish counterparts to intercept the passenger upon arrival in Glasgow. However, this time, he checked in under a false name. Society dévoile ce 6 août 2020 les soirées libertines de Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès et de sa femme Agnès. It translates into English as follows: Huge surprise: we have to leave urgently for the US, due to a very particular set of circumstances that we will explain below. Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès achète dans plusieurs magasins du ciment, une bêche et une houe et, le lendemain, quatre sacs de 10 kg de chaux. Xavier spends the night of 11 to 12 April at the Hôtel Première Classe in, Xavier spends the night of 12 to 13 April at the Auberge de Cassagne in. "Toute la deuxième partie c'est 99% de neuf, de révélations", a d'ailleurs affirmé le co-fondateur et dirigeant du groupe So Press, Franck Annese, au micro de la radio. Thursday 7 April: several witnesses claim to have seen Agnès alive, Family's and their lawyer's views on the investigation, École nationale supérieure de mécanique et d'aérotechnique, List of fugitives from justice who disappeared, United States Federal Witness Protection Program, "Dupont de Ligonnès: la maison du massacre toujours en vente", "Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: 55 boulevard Schuman", "Tuerie de Nantes. I was surprised, you spoke to me about Bertram, who's getting ready for his flight?! They relied mostly on money inherited from Agnès' family, and by 2011, that money was in danger of running out. In 2011, Xavier and Agnès lived at 55 Boulevard Robert Schuman in Nantes, Loire-Atlantique,[2][3][4] in a modest house in the western suburbs of the city. [9] A study published by Bernard Blandre in Mouvements Religieux ("Religious Movements") and later put online states that if Xavier is the murderer, his motives were not religious.[64]. C'est un piètre homme d'affaires. They have claimed that she was seen in front of her house on 5 April around 12.15 or 12.30 pm, and again on 7 April. By then, almost a full three weeks had passed since Agnès and three of the children had last been seen. No other line of inquiry has been explored. He lived in the Saint-Aubin hall of residence and was described as an "ordinary boy who was often accompanied by his family to drop him off and pick him up",[18] while several of his classmates remember him as "very discreet". He wrote of "accidents" which may befall his family, and ended with the words: "So I hope that, even after a police investigation, my parents, brothers and sisters will never be led to believe that I intentionally caused these accidents (even if the evidence is strong). This page was last edited on 16 February 2021, at 21:31. After receiving the strange letters insisting the family had emigrated to the United States, they became even more suspicious, insisting there was no way she would have packed up the family and left without any words of farewell. But the autopsy allows Christine and Geneviève to step into the breach. Il est soupçonné d'avoir tué sa femme, ses quatre enfants et leurs deux chiens et de … Bye for now. If it's not too late, call me back or send me a text and I'll call you. Un internaute découvre que la mère confiait son mal-être sur le web", "Un expert dresse le portrait de Xavier de Ligonnès", "Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, portraits en famille", "Resultat BAC 2010 Nantes page 141 pour le BAC S, BAC L, BAC ES, BAC STI, BAC SMS, BAC STG, BAC STL, BAC STT, BAC Hotellerie et BAC professionnel. The search proved fruitless. The headmaster is unable to reach her by telephone. The date has not yet been determined. Neighbours in Nantes become concerned and contact the police. Il va partir en Floride sur l'héritage d'Agnès. However, her boss was unable to reach her when she reached out to follow up on her abrupt departure, according to Le Parisian. FEMME ACTUELLE - Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès : ce sujet qui divise la police de Nantes 01:12. [...] Investigations were carried out, but all that they have allowed us to ascertain is that the bodies share the same DNA. (Note: the C5 was unsellable so it was given to the father of one of Arthur's friends for parts.). In 2020, Netflix resurrected the Unsolved Mysteries series and the Dupont de Ligonnès murders were investigated in the third episode, "House of Terror". Sell the Golf convertible and the Xantia (the signed paperwork is on the living-room table) and send the money from the sale (minus 20% commission for your service) to Christine (contact her by phone). However, investigators were never able to track the letter to its source and remain skeptical that it actually came from the real Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. Thank you.". Arthur's girlfriend, who is concerned after not having heard from him, knocks on the door of the family home, where "a light was on on the first floor", but the family's two. Because nothing about Xavier's behavior indicated he was trying to hide from police or go on the run, investigators believed that Xavier's plan had been to take one last trip to southern France, where he had happy memories, and then commit suicide somewhere in the surrounding region. [7][8] One business based in Pornic, called SELREF, had a secretive and ambiguously defined purpose. Police were easily able to track Xavier's last moves. [47] He was eventually banned from the forum. Manage the accounts according to the instructions in the document enclosed with this letter. Nothing about their lives would lead me to believe that anyone would have it in for them to this extent. In the early 2000s, they attempted to emigrate to Florida, but were unsuccessful. ", "Police struggle with silent monks as search for France's most wanted leads to monastery", "Man seized at Glasgow airport is not French fugitive, police confirm", "Comment a-t-on pu croire en une fausse piste dans l'affaire Ligonnès ? [78], On 9 January 2018, armed police raided the Saint-Desert monastery in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, the village where Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was last seen, after several worshippers claimed that they had seen him there. [1][5] Xavier's professional activities were very vague, but he is described as a salesman by a source close to the inquiry. The official story is that we have been transferred to AUSTRALIA for work, without providing any specific details. Xavier was last seen on Thursday, April 14th, when a security camera in the parking lot picked him up leaving a hotel, the Hotel Formule 1, in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, according to Europe 1. This led to a major search effort. The house's shutters have been closed for more than a week and Agnès's car has been parked outside on the street the entire time. The children did not attend school the following day, supposedly due to an illness, according to Le Parisien. His boss is surprised by this, stating that Arthur always came to collect his wages on the first day of the month. The passenger was duly arrested by Police Scotland, who fingerprinted him before telling the French authorities: "This is your man." In more recent years, there have been false sightings of Xavier. He sends an email to his brother-in-law (Christine's husband), saying "everything's fine, Bertram, you'll hear more detailed news soon through Christine. On April 11th, just a few days after the Dupont de Ligonnès family's last sightings, Xavier and Agnès' relatives received a typed letter, supposedly from Xavier. While some investigators believed he may have killed himself, his body was never found. While some neighbors claimed to have seen her outside walking her dog on the evening of April 7th, most investigators place her death to have occurred around April 5th, making that timeline unlikely. However, perhaps the most incriminating aspect came around the middle of the letter, where Xavier told them to stay away from the rubble on the back terrace. La piste de Claudia, l'ancienne amante", "Ligonnès : les enquêteurs ont entendu son ex-amie allemande à Munich", "Affaire Dupont de Ligonnès: l'audition de Claudia "n'a rien donné, "L'"ami américain" de Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès", "Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès : de nouveaux repérages dans le Var – Société – MYTF1News", "Dupont de Ligonnès : reportage sur le site des prochaines fouilles [Photos]", "La tuerie d'Auriol. The police in Nantes, under the orders of Judge Robert Tchalian, spent more than two years looking for Claudia, a German woman whom Xavier almost married in the early 1980s, and with whom he had kept in contact. Although there is some dispute over the last known sighting of Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès, neighbors recalled with certainty seeing her on April 5th, per RTL. Most notably, someone matching his physical description was caught on CCTV in a casino in Néris-les-Bains, and the police subsequently concentrated their search on the area.[90]. After his death, Xavier went through the belongings left in his apartment, presumably looking for things of value. An autopsy was carried out and did not completely exclude the possibility of the body being that of Xavier. Records show he bought a silencer for the rifle in March, and he followed that purchase with an even more ominous shopping spree. Thomas, the second oldest child at 18-years-old and Xavier's first biological son, was also enrolled in college, studying music, per 7sur7. When he was 20-years-old, he met Agnès Hodanger, another young member of the Versailles bourgeois, and although they claimed to be in love, he was not ready to settle down. Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and her four children had been shot and their bodies buried under the back patio of their own home, and their father, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, had disappeared. The Dupont de Ligonnès family is an old French aristocratic family originally from Annonay,[1] in the Vivarais region in south-eastern France. In 2019, a man believed to be Xavier was arrested in Glasgow, Scotland. On April 11th, La Perverie, the school Anne and Benoît attended, received a note from Xavier saying he was pulling them out, as the family was planning a sudden move to Australia for business, according to France24. The couple and three of the children dine in a restaurant in Nantes. He was 20 years old at the time of his death. However, as far as the police are aware, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès did not have a medical device in his forearm, even though it is not impossible that he may have been operated on after his disappearance. As of today, investigators have no new leads on the whereabouts of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. During the day, investigators discover the remains of Agnès and the four children under the patio in the back garden of the house. The family's funeral was held at 2.30 pm at Saint-Félix Church in Nantes. While some beds had been stripped of linens and some photographs were missing, police believed this meant the family had packed up and left voluntary.