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Killer in the family podcast
A true crime podcast exploring men who kill their families.
Killer in the family podcast
Episode 43 - Dupont de Ligonnes Family
In April 2011 after a neighbour raised the alarm and a few welfare checks police found the bodies of five family members buried under a terrace in a house in Nantes, France – a mother and her four children. Their father, however, was missing and is still the main suspect in their murders.
This is the story of Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès, and her four children, Arthur, Thomas, Anne and Benoît.
Information and support
· Samaritans UK Contact Us | Samaritans
· Women’s Aid www.womensaid.org.uk
· Mental health support USA I'm looking for mental health help for myself | Mental Health America (mhanational.org)
· Domestic abuse helpline USA 1.800.799.SAFE Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org)
References
Clare Laxton is fundraising for Women's Aid Federation Of England (justgiving.com)
Dupont de Ligonnès murders and disappearance - Wikipedia
Inside The Dupont De Ligonnes Murders: What Happened To The French Family? (grunge.com)
Where is Xavier DuPont De Ligonnès from Unsolved Mysteries now? | Radio Times
‘I am still alive’: Alleged fugitive French killer contacts media (france24.com)
Credits
Hosted and created by Clare Laxton @ladylaxton
Produced by: Clare Laxton
Killer in the family podcast (buzzsprout.com)
Music by Tom Box and from Pixabay.
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Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, claire Laxton. Welcome to episode 43 of the podcast and, in really exciting news and as some of you might have seen on social media over the weekend, the podcast has reached over 10,000 downloads. I genuinely can't believe it and just want to say a massive thank you to all of you for your listens, subscribes and support, and here's to the next 10 000. Also, just a reminder that you can support the pod by buying me a coffee or a tea via a link in the episode notes. Someone lovely bought me a coffee this week and said, quote love the podcast and all your time and energy is devoted to challenging and unpicking some of the most complex areas in life. Thank you so much for your support. So let's get straight into this episode, as it's going to be quite an in-depth case.
Speaker 1:In April 2011, after a neighbour raised the alarm and a few welfare checks, police found the bodies of five family members buried under a terrace in a house in Nantes, france, a mother and her four children. Their father, however, was missing and is still the main suspect in their murders. This is the story of Agnès Dupont-Deligionnaise and her four children, arthur, thomas, anne and Benoit. This is going to be a tough listen team. The cold, meticulous planning that went into this familicide is just horrific. As usual, there are links to support in the episode notes as well, and there are also links to all my sources for the episode too, as well as news articles. I've also listened to a Going West, one of my fave true crime podcast episodes about this case, and there's also an episode of the Netflix series Unsolved Mysteries called House of Horror or La Maison de l'Epouvant, about this case as well. I massively recommend a watch if you're interested. Also, just a bit of a note this case obviously takes place in France and while I can speak a bit of French, I know that my accent and pronunciation might not quite be right. I know that there are French speakers that listen to the podcast, so apologies in advance and please let me know if there are any absolute howlers in my pronunciation here.
Speaker 1:But let's start by talking about the family. Agnès Dupont de Ligionneuse was born Agnès Hodanger on the 9th of November in 1962 in Nulli-sur-Seine, which was a suburb of Paris. She was 48 when she was killed and she was a teaching assistant at a Catholic school at the time of her death. She was very religious the whole family were Catholic and was described as a strict but a very loving mother. She met Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès in the early 1980s and they fell in love quickly. She was keen to settle down and start a family, but he had a taste for adventure, so they split up when he went off to travel and see the world.
Speaker 1:Now, xavier was born on the 9th of January 1961 and was from a very prestigious family. His father was a count and he grew up in Versailles. Any history students will be very familiar with Versailles, which is where Louis XIV resided, and, as I said, his family was very prestigious. They were actual nobility and that included things like having a signet ring with the family coat of arms and the family motto on, and it's something that Xavier was super proud of. A childhood friend of Xavier, who grew up with him in Versailles, bruno, told Netflix that Xavier was very pleasant, he was quick to laugh, he was good with people, he's very personable and he was just, you know, a great guy growing up with people. He's very personable and he was just, you know, a great guy growing up.
Speaker 1:Now, back in the 1980s, when Xavier had gone travelling after falling in love with Agnes, she actually became pregnant by someone else. Now, when Xavier returned, he was still in love with her and they actually got married and he took on her child, who was a son, as his own and became father to him, and that was Arthur Dupont de Ligionnes. This is probably relatively unheard of in conservative and Catholic France, so quite an unusual occurrence here. Now, arthur was born on the 7th of July 1990 to another father, as we have mentioned, but was recognised by Xavier as his own when he and Agnes married two years later. Arthur was just 20 years old when he was killed and at the time of his death he was studying for a technical diploma in IT at a Catholic private college in Saint-Laurent-sur-Serve, which was about an hour's drive from Nantes, and he also worked as a waiter in a pizzeria in Nantes. The couple, agnes and Xavier, went on to have three more children and in 2011, by the time of the murders, they were living in Nantes, a city in the west of France, and they lived at number 55, chumon Boulevard, which was a house in a terrace of houses quite a busy suburb so the house wasn't isolated or anything. There were lots and lots around the busy family home. I'll put a photo of the house on my social media so you can sort of see what I mean.
Speaker 1:So their three other children included Thomas, who was born on the 28th of August 1992. He was just 18 years old when he was killed and Thomas was described as quite shy, but he absolutely loved music and he was actually studying music at the time of his death at the Catholic University of the West in Angers. Next, there was Anne, who was born on the 2nd of August 1994, and she was just 16 years old when she was killed. She was quite religious, like her mother, and she was also a model for mail-order catalogues and, according to the Netflix show, was a very good student, maybe the best of all the children. And finally, there was Benoit, who was born on the 29th of May 1997 and was the youngest of the family. He was just 13 years old when he was killed and Benoit apparently loved to play the drums and would play them loud, reverberating through the house In 2011. The family also had two black Labradors and were seen by neighbours and everyone who knew them as a golden family, a happy family, but, as with so many cases we discuss on the podcast, all was not as it seemed with the family.
Speaker 1:Now let's start with the relationship between Agnes and Xavier. I found reports that they were actually separated in 2005 for a few months following an incident in which Xavier was physically violent with Arthur. Agnes reported it to the police and she said that she was afraid of Xavier's behaviour and what he might do. Now this indicates that all was not well, and having gone to the police and being afraid of him is a sign that there might have been some control and abuse in the marriage. After they reconciled, xavier made Agnes write a letter to their family and friends saying that she had made everything up and that Xavier was a brilliant husband and had never deceived her. That sounds pretty controlling to me.
Speaker 1:Agnes also talked about her marital difficulties on an online forum and actually said that Xavier had commented to her that a group death as a family would not be a catastrophe. She said on this forum quote Xavier is too judgmental, too quick to argue, too rigid, too military. There is no more tenderness between us, no more attention, no softness, no sex. When I ask him if he's happy, his response is the same yes, I am, but if we could all die tomorrow, that would be better. Wow, it really, really doesn't seem like this is a happy marriage and furthermore, it's reported that Xavier was actually had lots of affairs as well. Now I couldn't find reliable sources of how many, but there was definitely one woman he was having an affair with called Catherine, who he wrote to in January 2010, talking about how unhappy he was with his life.
Speaker 1:Quote 2010 talking about how unhappy he was with his life. Quote I can't sleep anymore. I have insomnia almost every night with morbid ideas f up everyone in the house. After giving everyone a sleeping pill, f myself up so that Agnes gets 600 000 euros. I don't want this family life with Agnes. That I don't like anymore. My children are almost all grown up and two of them already live on their side, morally independent, even if I pay. I want a new life and I can't imagine it without you. Anyway, my current life will end in the next few months if I can't find 25,000 euros immediately. I can't continue to live without paying rent, electricity, water, schools, etc. Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:So that letter does not paint the picture of a happy marriage or happy family life at all, and it brings us to the next difficulty which was going on for Xavier his financial issues. Apparently, between 2001 and 2011, particularly, xavier was on a downward spiral of failure. There was a failed move to America with the family, many failed businesses and companies that were not successful, and he owed a lot of money, with bailiffs coming imminently to collect on debts. He apparently even borrowed money from his mistresses that he was having affairs with, and this situation really reminds me of you know, someone like John List, who we covered in episodes six and seven, or Robert Mockery from episode two. And lastly, in 2011, xavier's father actually died, and although Xavier, when he was clearing out his flat, he found a count's signet ring that he really wanted, there was actually no money from his father. His father, who was a count, died in poverty, and I'm sure that that sadly resonated with Xavier and the trajectory of his own life.
Speaker 1:Now, although he didn't find any money, when he was clearing out his father's apartment, xavier did find a .22 long rifle, which he took. He then started to regularly attend a shooting range to learn how to shoot. He'd never done this before, and he even asked the instructor about using a silencer, and in March 2011, he bought a silencer. That is a massive red flag here. So here we are. We have a family who were really anything but a happy family. We have a father and a husband desperate to be seen as a caring and brilliant man, who was very proud of his nobility and probably quite vain about it. He was not only facing financial failure, but was also having affairs and was possibly abusive and controlling. We have a wife who's clearly also unhappy and children who are growing up and leaving the family home. We also have a very unhappy man who had just inherited a rifle and was starting to spend a lot of time learning how to shoot. The whole Dupont-Deligionnaires family were last seen together on the 4th of April 2011, and this is going to be a really tough
Speaker 1:lesson. On Monday, the 11th of April, a neighbour of the Dupont-Deligionnaires family, estelle, saw that their house was quiet and that it had been quiet for quite a few days. She noticed a note on the letterbox saying return all mail to sender and the shutters were closed, and she said that they were always open. Now, on the Tuesday and the Wednesday that week it was the same. So Estelle called the police and on Wednesday, the 13th of April, the police check on the house for a welfare visit. They get a locksmith to open the door and go inside, they find everything is pretty quiet. All the beds have had their sheets removed, so like the beds have been stripped, there's sort of things that have been. You know, the house has clearly had things taken out of it, but nothing else was out of the ordinary and all the cars were there, apart from a Citroen C5, which was Xavier's car. Now, estelle, the neighbour, thought that this was suspicious, as you could definitely not fit all the family in the Citroen C5, you know, like six adults, six adults, two dogs, like they're not fitting in that car, and so she thought that this was this was really
Speaker 1:suspicious. Now, on Thursday, the 16th of April, some of Xavier and Agnes' family received some mail, and this mail is very significant. What they received were eight page letters. They were typed and they were from Xavier. I'll read an extract from the letters, but you know I'm not going to read them all because they're quite long, but you'll get the gist here. So the letter said quote hi, everyone, huge surprise. We have to leave urgently for the US due to a very particular set of circumstances. You're receiving this letter by conventional leave urgently for the US due to a very particular set of circumstances, you're receiving this letter by conventional post because for the next few years, we can't communicate any other way for safety reasons. When you read this letter, we will no longer be in France and won't be able to return for as yet undetermined period. You must be wondering what's going on. Here's the story, at least as much as we're allowed to tell you. This letter is the only correspondence we're allowed to write, and it has been checked before being
Speaker 1:sent. When we started our company in Miami in 2003, we were put into contact with the DEA, who were looking for a French national to infiltrate the French nightclub scene to obtain information about drug trafficking and money laundering networks without drawing attention to themselves. I was the ideal candidate. With the information that I've collected in this time, I've become a key witness in an upcoming trial involving major drug trafficking kingpins. The trial will take place in the US in the next few years. What complicates matters is that certain tips have recently led us to believe that my cover may have been blown, and unfortunately, we received confirmation of this yesterday. Therefore, the situation has now become dangerous for us here and has required us to take emergency
Speaker 1:measures. When I first went undercover, I accepted that I might be placed into witness protection. This is now what we have to do. So we have been taken into the protective custody of the US government and have new identities, which, of course, must be kept secret. Have new identities, which, of course, must be kept secret. The hardest thing there is some tension with the children who couldn't tell their friends and are forbidden from using online networks. We've had to give up the dogs. Luckily, someone took both of them. The official story is that we've been transferred to Australia for
Speaker 1:work. Without providing any specific details, it would be good if you could spread this false story on Facebook and elsewhere. Take good care of yourselves. We'll have so many stories to tell you later. Wow, I mean, what a letter to receive. And, as they said on the Going West episode, it's like something out of a spy movie. And, as it turned out, everything in the letter was total BS. Now, where Xavier's family sort of took the letter on and thought oh okay, this is, you know, a new development, an interesting
Speaker 1:development. Agnes's family felt like the letter was very suspicious and that she would not leave the country without telling them. So they went to the police and asked them to go back to the house again. The police did, and they didn't find anything again, or they did notice that all the photos were missing from the frames on the wall. Now, agnes's family would not let this go. They kept up the pressure on the police, and so the police returned to the house again and again On the 19th of April, on the 20th of April, on the 21st of April and on the sixth visit to the
Speaker 1:house. The police did find something odd under the terrace in the garden. Now, this terrace wasn't like a normal sort of patio that you might think of. It was more of a raised patio with a sort of gap underneath it, and this is where the police started. Looking Under the terrace, the police find plastic bags closed with duct tape, and inside those bags they found dead bodies. Many dead bodies Under the terrace were the dead bodies of Agnes, arthur, benoit and Anne, as well as the two family Labradors. Thomas was found buried
Speaker 1:separately. This was a massacre of a family. All of the bodies were wrapped in blankets and duvets, tied up with tape and put in plastic bags with a religious symbol with them all so like a candle or rosary beads. After the scene had been investigated by the police, there was an autopsy which found traces of sleeping pills in all the children, of sleeping pills in all the children. Agnes didn't have drugs in her system, but she actually slept with a sleep apnea machine, which showed that it had been turned off at 3am early one morning, and police believe that Agnes was the first victim, and then the children. They were all shot in the head twice with a 22 long
Speaker 1:rifle. They deduced that Xavier must have used a silencer, as the neighbours didn't hear any gunshots and, as previously mentioned, they were in close quarters with their neighbours. Agnes and the children were all in their pyjamas, and so the police deduced that they'd been killed in their sleep. And, as we talked about, when the police first came to the house, it was spotlessly clean. There were no traces of blood anywhere, which is quite something when there have been five people killed by gunshots in the house. Xavier must have spent such a long time cleaning the house, burying his family. Indeed, he probably had about a week or so before the neighbour became suspicious. The police also didn't find any DNA or anything in the house. Now, as we've said above, thomas was killed separately from the rest of the family, and it's thought that Xavier asked him to come back from college on the Tuesday night saying his mum had had an accident and was in a coma, and that night at midnight Thomas is last heard from as he messaged a friend. He was never seen again and it's likely that he was killed that night and buried in a separate
Speaker 1:grave. By the time the bodies were discovered, on the 21st of April 2011, xavier Dupont du Légionneur had fled, leaving the dead bodies of his whole family and two family dogs behind. Needless to say that when the family were found, it caused shockwaves throughout Nantes and beyond. After the autopsies, the police started piecing together what they think happened and who they thought was responsible for the murders. They found out that on Saturday, the 2nd of April, xavier had bought four bags of lime and he'd also bought a shovel, a hoe and cement as well, and police believe that it was the evening of the 4th of April when Xavier killed Agnes, arthur, anne and Benoit and the dogs, and on the evening of the 5th of April was when he killed Thomas. Anne and Benoit's school received a letter from Xavier on the 11th of April, the Monday, stating that Anne and Benoit would be leaving the school and the family would be moving to Australia and the Catholic school when, where Agnes worked, received a resignation letter, signed by her, stating the same reason for leaving. The police also found that the lease on the house had been terminated, all the bank accounts had been closed and, interestingly, as was the case of the Foster family, a bailiff visited the house in early April as well, but was unable to get an answer at the
Speaker 1:door. Now I have to point out here that Xavier's family do not believe that he murdered his family. Firstly, they say that when the bodies of Agnes and the four children were found, that it wasn't them. They didn't think that it was Agnes and the family. Now, who they thought it was was beyond me Another woman, four children and two dogs who happened to be walking past the house'm not sure. But they also said that there was no way that Xavier could have dug the grave as he had problems with his back. Now I do have to say like where the bodies were buried was in a really awkward place the terrace, with the small gap underneath, and there's obviously a lot of soil to be moved. But there was also a lot of time for Xavier to do what he needed to do, and that's the only thing that has made me think twice about him doing this, but in the end it's not enough to convince me of his innocence, and it's also worth mentioning that there are people that dispute the police's timeline. Not that Xavier killed his family, more about about when it happened, because there were reports that people saw and spoke to Agnes on the 5th of April after, apparently, she had been killed, and there were reports of people seeing Thomas after he had apparently been killed, according to the police's timeline. I don't think these disputes challenge the main occurrence that Xavier killed his family, but it's just worth mentioning, in case you go down a reddit rabbit hole like I have. So what actually happened to
Speaker 1:Xavier. Well, after killing and burying his whole family, xavier was seen traveling from Don in his car on the 10th of April and the police know it was the 10th of April because he was caught by a speed camera. He was travelling towards the south of France. He stopped at restaurants and hotels and used his credit card. He was caught by CCTV and didn't seem to be fleeing particularly quickly or cleverly. But remember, his family had not yet been discovered, so he probably thought he had loads of time before they were and maybe assumed that he would have seen it on the news as well. On the 11th of April he travelled through Toulouse. On the 12th of April he travelled through Arles and he checked into the Formula One hotel in Roquebrune-sur-Agen on the 15th of April. Cctv caught him that day crossing the car park with his luggage and a long object that police believe was the rifle he used to kill his family. This is the last time. This is the last confirmed sighting of Xavier Dupont de Ligiennes Now, on the 22nd of
Speaker 1:April. So, after they'd found the bodies, police find Xavier's car in the F1, in the Formula One hotel in the south of France, and they believed that he was sort of about to take his own life, as many family annihilators do. Indeed, in the Roquebrune-sur-Argen area there are lots of cliffs, mountains and caves which make people believe that he went into the countryside and took his own life. But he has never been found and police, emergency services, mountain rescuers they searched the area for over two months and indeed there have been over 900 sightings of Xavier since and there are lots of theories about what might have happened to him. Some think he could have gotten a ship to go to Italy, maybe, or a train to Croatia. He could have gotten a car and driven to Italy. Some believe he's in Latin America as he could speak
Speaker 1:Spanish. There have been a couple of significant possible sightings over the past 13 years. In 2019, a man was actually detained at Glasgow airport because he resembled Xavier so much. According to the BBC, the police in Scotland said quote on Friday, the 11th of October 2019, a man was arrested at Glasgow Airport. Following information provided to police, he was held in police custody in connection with a European arrest warrant issued by the French authorities. Inquiries were undertaken to confirm the man's identity. Following results of these tests, it has been confirmed that the man arrested is the non, not the man suspected of crimes in france. The man has since been
Speaker 1:released. Oh, it must have been really scary for that guy who was just, you know, going home to france and then held in custody because people thought that he was a family annihilator. And the other sort of significant sort of occurrence is in 2015 there was a photo sent to a journalist of Xavier and his sons which had handwritten on the back. I am still alive. However many sightings there have been of Xavier, and how hard the police have hunted for him, he has not yet been found dead or alive and might be asking what do I think happened here? So I believe that Xavier killed his family. It's technically an unsolved case, but I don't think it is really. I believe he killed them because he was in debt, the bailiffs were coming and the house might be lost and he didn't want to lose face with his family. He was a very proud man. He had failing businesses and was having
Speaker 1:affairs. By the very nature of doing this podcast, it means that we have heard all of this before. You know, if this was the first time you'd ever heard about Fam familicide, you might wonder how someone could do this and why and question, you know, was it really him? But we've covered the Watts family, the Mokku family, the List family, the Longo family, the Crawford family, and it goes on, and we know that it does happen and has happened and the reasons all of these men chose to take the lives of their families but not their own was to avoid failure and financial ruin and their families finding out. It was through pure self-interest and narcissism in many cases, and I genuinely believe that Xavier killed his family thinking that they wouldn't be found. Maybe for months he planned the murder so meticulously and talked about what he would do to a woman that he was having an affair with. He was callous and cold about how he killed his whole family and his two dogs and probably thought he'd get away with it without being found. That's why he fled so casually, still using his credit card and knowing CCTV was capturing him. He obviously had a plan for after he got to the south of France, and whether that was to take his own life or flee to another country, who knows, but what I do know is that he should have faced justice for what he did. He might still be out there
Speaker 1:now. This episode is dedicated to Agnes, arthur, thomas, anne and Benoit Dupont-Duligenez, to the joy and potential of their lives, the love and fun they brought to their family, friends and community, and to their lives cut short by the person who should have loved and protected them the most. This has been Killer in the Family podcast, written and produced by me, claire Laxton, with music from the brilliant Tombox and Pixabay. I'll be back next week with a new episode, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to send me any comments or questions to my Insta at Killer in the Family pod, or through a text via the link in the episode notes. Do let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well, and don't forget you can buy me a coffee if you like the podcast and help. Support is running. The link is in the episode notes. Until then, I've been Claire Laxton. This is killer in the family podcast. Until next time, take care, thank you. Thank you. ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.
