How about a little true crime?

Pretty sure some French dude murdered his family and got away with it

Conspirators!!

Welcome, welcome. As much as we love veering into the supernatural and extraterrestrial realms, there are plenty of conspiracies that are also very much grounded in reality (as we know it). In light of this, we thought we’d take a dive into a an old-fashioned, real life murder mystery. So if an unsolved case involving a French aristocrat and his entire family’s disappearance intrigues you… then put on your funny little Sherlock hat, say something demeaning to your friend Dr. Watson, and take a nibble with us.

Am I going to feel uplifted after this nibble? (Spoiler alert: Doubtful…but we left a fun treat for you at the end to cheer you up, don’t worry.)

In April of 2011, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès (please don’t ask us to pronounce that) and his family went missing. According to Wikipedia, here are their final actions:

• The house had been completely emptied and the lease had been terminated.

• All bank accounts had been closed.

• The children's school received a final payment settlement.

• The mother's employer was informed that she was suffering from gastroenteritis and then that she was moving to Australia.

• A message was placed on their letter box: "Please return all correspondence to sender. Thank you."

Already, we’re into some strange territory. An investigation into Xavier’s recent purchases (bullets, cement, lime, a shovel… oh boy, doesn’t look great...) led the police to search the home. They found bodies buried under the patio in the back garden of the house. The investigators claimed to have found the remains of all four children and Xavier’s wife, but there are certain facts that make this case fairly conspiratorial…

(^Dupont de Ligonnès family. Idk, I think see murder in his eyes. He’s ‘spicious.)

The husband always did it.

The obvious answer here is that the husband did it… and that’s also what the authorities think. But there are oddities surrounding the case that have us wondering the truth to that. Here’s why the Nibbles team dove into this particular story:

• Up to 9 people saw Xavier’s wife alive after the date the police say she was killed. She was seen walking the dog with Anne and Bertrand, the two youngest kids. (The dead don’t typically walk around, and if they are we’ve got a whole other problem on our hands here.)

• Xavier left detailed letters to his family about what to do with the house, their belongings, the contracts, etc. He left the key to the basement, which you could only access through a door in the garden right next to where the bodies were. 

• The autopsy seems kind of botched. The individual death certificates were made on site without DNA testing or anyone to attest to their identity. And the police released details to the family that were not consistent with the victims (eg. they mixed up the two sons, gave heights and weights that weren’t accurate, etc.)

• To dig the holes where the bodies were found, Xavier would have moved over 1 ton of soil in a location that would be almost impossible to stand up in. (Like, could he have done this? Probably yes. But the effort it might have taken would have been noticed by someone, no?)

And finally, the big one: 

• One letter that was delivered to his immediate family included the most ‘spicious detail yet - that Xavier and the family would have to “leave urgently for the US” because he had become a key witness for the Drug Enforcement Agency and now they all had to enter into the Witness Protection Program. Find the full letter here.

Occam buys a razor

So what do you think? Even if we’re going by Occam’s Razor (essentially “the simplest explanation is most likely the right one”), this one breaks down a bit. Here’s some potential solutions we’ve seen tossed around. None are exactly...happy:

1. Xavier is so psychotic that he planned the murders of his beloved wife and children, avoiding capture for almost a decade. (A branch off of this theory is that he murdered them then committed suicide.) 

2. Xavier’s actually mixed up with some dark lord drug baddies who got to him before the feds did. Aka, they hid his body elsewhere but buried the rest of the family at the home so the police would focus their investigation on the “husband did it” theory.

3. The whole family is safely in the Witness Protection Program and the discovery of the bodies was a plant to deter anyone looking to find Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès.

Good Gravy thanks for the extra helping of depression

But really, what are your thoughts? We’d love to hear from you about this particular story and whether or not true crime conspiracies tickle your fancy like the fun alien, cryptid, and paranormal does! If you’re wanting to take more than a Nibble, dive on in to these ‘sauces:

• Netflix episode on Unsolved Mysteries

• For our French speakers, the family’s personal blog

• The latest rumor that Dupont was seen in Chicago

(In case this was too dismal for you on a Monday morning, here’s a video of Christopher Walken dancing in that one Fatboy Slim music video to cleanse your palate.)

See you all next week! Don’t forget to subscribe and share. And as always:

Stay ‘spicious.