The News Reader, Ottawa, Spring 2011

The U.K and Roy­al­ists around the world cel­e­brated the Royal Wed­ding, the U.S.A finally got “America’s most wanted” and Canada woke up from the fed­eral elec­tions with a hangover—Harper in a major­ity gov­ern­ment, seriously?

Mean­while, the head­lines in France were all about a grisly case that took place in Nantes, my hometown.

Early April, an entire fam­ily dis­ap­peared: Xavier and Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and their four chil­dren, Arthur (21), Thomas (18), Anne (16), and Benoit (13). The fam­ily has the “dis­creet charm of the bour­geoisie”, liv­ing in a town­house in a posh neigh­bour­hood. The par­ents are devout believ­ers and the kids are given a rel­a­tively strict upbring­ing at the local Catholic school. The mother teaches kids the cat­e­chism in a local pri­vate school and the father is a busi­ness­man. An old noble fam­ily liv­ing an unevent­ful shel­tered life, like many oth­ers in Nantes.

Except that this fam­ily sud­denly dis­ap­peared mys­te­ri­ously. Early April, the two young kids’ absence from school is jus­ti­fied by a let­ter from the father, stat­ing that the fam­ily is mov­ing to Aus­tralia. Agnès’ employer is told a sim­i­lar story as she fails to show up for work. The extended fam­ily receives another ver­sion of that let­ter, this one explain­ing that Xavier, the father, was a US secret agent and had to enter the wit­ness pro­tec­tion program.

Noti­fied by close rel­a­tives wor­ried about the family’s where­abouts, the police even­tu­ally entered the house late April. Five bod­ies are quickly dug up: the mother and the four chil­dren. They were all shot dead and method­i­cally buried in the yard. Even the fam­ily dogs were killed.

But the father’s body isn’t found and he quickly becomes the num­ber one sus­pect. The police finds out that he spent the night in an hotel but loses his trace in South­ern France.

Within hours, the quiet and ami­ca­ble father of five becomes France’s most wanted fugitive.

The family’s exe­cu­tion seems clin­i­cal and method­i­cally orga­nized. Xavier did send let­ters explain­ing his wife and children’s absence from work, and the house is empty as if the fam­ily had moved. He recently became a mem­ber of s shoot­ing club, prac­tic­ing with a silencer. This is sur­pris­ing for this kind of cases—the exe­cu­tion was planned, the killer didn’t just snap in a fit of rage or madness.

And lit­tle by lit­tle, as the inves­ti­ga­tion pro­gresses, light is shed on the family’s secrets, buried under a respectable appear­ance. For instance, the couple’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion was catastrophic—Xavier had spent his wife’s inher­i­tance and had bor­rowed money from a lover in Paris, who was now demand­ing it back. The old­est son wasn’t his. Both Xavier and his wife each were beg­ging for help on var­i­ous Inter­net forums: he shared his doubts on his Catholic faith while she was describ­ing a fail­ing mar­riage plagued by finan­cial issues. The police still doesn’t under­stand how the fam­ily could afford its way of life con­sid­er­ing Xavier wasn’t the suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man his rel­a­tives thought he was. The mys­tery is deep­en­ing a lit­tle bit more every day and leaves France captivated.

Three weeks later, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès is still at large. The num­ber one sus­pect is still inno­cent until proven guilty but his escape and the clues points to him. And France is still gripped by the hunt, bet­ting on his motives and on the out­come of the case.

Related arti­cles:

1. Rebel France (1÷2)
2. Rebel France III
3. Pur­chas­ing Power Blues In France
4. Rebel France IV
5. Rebel France (2÷2)