FRENCH POLICE were yesterday searching for a man they suspect of murdering his wife and four children and burying them in the garden of their home in the western city of Nantes, along with the family’s two pet Labradors.
Police investigators dug up the bodies of Agnes Dupont de Ligonnes (49), her four children aged 13 to 20 and the two dogs on Thursday, after neighbours reported the family had not been seen since early April.
Local prosecutor Xavier Ronsin told reporters they had “very likely been killed with a firearm”.
Police said they had found the car of Ms Dupont de Ligonnes’s husband, Xavier (50), in the car park of a hotel in the town of Roquebrune-sur-Argens in southeast France, some 10 hours’ drive away, after bank withdrawals showed he was in the area.
French media, citing police reports, said there were no signs of a struggle inside the family’s house, but that wardrobes had been emptied of clothes.
Ronsin told reporters Mr Dupont de Ligonnes, a tourism consultant, had written a letter to relatives before going missing saying he was a secret agent working for the United States on a drugs case.
Postmortems were due to be carried out yesterday.
The devout Catholic family, originally from Versailles, have been missing since April 3rd. The investigation has been complicated by bizarre and contradictory messages apparently left by the family.
Earlier this month, the private Catholic school of the two youngest children received a note saying their father had been “urgently” transferred to Australia for a job. A cheque was enclosed to cover fees for the rest of the year.
Mr Dupont de Ligonnes told another school – where his wife worked as an assistant and taught catechism – that she had been hospitalised for gastroenteritis. The school then received a letter announcing her resignation.
The radio station Europe 1 reported that she had told a friend: “Pray for me, I’m going to need it.”
Her husband was thought to work either selling advertising space or running a company dealing with tourist-guide listings. He told some people he was a US secret agent and had to leave under a witness-protection programme because he had given evidence in a big drugs case.
Forensic experts were analysing small brown traces in the house, which could have been blood. There was no sign of a struggle. The bins had been emptied, sheets were folded on beds and in the dishwasher were six plates and sets of cutlery from their last meal. – (Reuters, Guardianservice)