The Dupont de Ligonnès Affair

On 7 April 2011, the patriarch of the aristocratic Dupont de Ligonnès family, Xavier, packed up his car with several large bags and set off for parts unknown. His home in Nantes, France - where he lived with his wife and four children - would remain still and quiet for days after. Days later, a heinous discovery would be made on the family's property, but by then, Xavier was long gone...

The Dupont de Ligonnès family is an old, aristocratic family, originating from the Vivarais region in southeastern France. From the Dupont de Ligonnès family came several important military officers, a vicar general, a bishop of Rodez, mayors, and knights of Saint-Louis and of the Legion of Honor - and, of course, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès... a man who almost certainly killed his entire family before going on the run.

This is the story of the Dupont de Ligonnès murders (aka "L'Affaire Dupont de Ligonnès").

Born on January 9th, 1961 in Versailles to Count Bernard-Hubert Dupont de Ligonnès and Geneviève Thérèse Maître, Xavier was raised in the aristocratic circles of Versailles. Although Xavier was raised and schooled in high society, his professional activities were very vague, with his career often described vaguely as a “salesman” or a “businessman.” He started several businesses, most of which were geared towards travelling salespeople and restaurant guests - it seems, however, that these businesses were all met with limited success.

Xavier’s wife, Agnes, was born on November 9th, 1962 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris.

Xavier and Agnes first met in Versailles in the early 80’s at age 20 and 17 respectively - however, according to one of Xavier’s friends, Bruno de Stabenrath, while Agnes was a very religious, traditional woman, Xavier longed for adventure, and ended up leaving Agnes to go travelling. When he returned to Versailles a year later, he discovered that Agnes was pregnant with another man’s child. Despite this, he decided to resume his relationship with Agnes and help raise her child.

Xavier and Agnes married when her son, Arthur, was 2 years old, and Xavier immediately recognized the boy as his son and gave him his last name. In the aristocratic circles of Versailles that Xavier was raised in, this sort of thing simply wasn’t done and was in fact quite controversial - however, Xavier and Agnes built a family together, eventually having four children.

The oldest was, of course, Arthur. At the time of his death, Arthur was 20 years old, and was studying for a technical diploma in IT at the Saint-Gabriel private college located in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre, about an hour’s drive from where his family lived in Nantes.

In 1992, the same year they got married, Xavier and Agnes welcomed another son, Thomas. In 2011, at age 18, he was studying music at the Catholic University of the West in Angers, also about an hour from Nantes by train.

Two years later, in 1994, Xavier and Agnes’s daughter Anne was born. She was 16 years old when the incident occurred, and was pursuing an academic curriculum in the sciences. She was described by those who knew her as a considerate young girl who shared her mother’s deep religious beliefs.

The couple’s fourth and last child was Benoît, born in 1997 and age 13 at the time of what would come to be known as the l’Affaire Dupont de Ligonnès. Not much is known about Benoît, given his young age, but he was an altar boy at the church his family attended.

The Dupont de Ligonnès family lived at 55 Boulevard Robert Schuman in the city of Nantes. Despite being a rather large city with over 300,000 residents, those who live in Nantes describe it as a quiet, calm place to live, especially the upper-middle class neighborhood the Dupont de Ligonnès family lived in. From the outside looking in, the Dupont de Ligonnès family seemed like a golden, near-perfect family - descended from the aristocracy, with a nice house, two seemingly successful parents and four beautiful children. They were well-known and well-respected within their community and by their friends and family - which is why the events that followed were so shocking, so inexplicable, so seemingly out of nowhere, that those who knew them still, over 10 years later, have a hard time believing that they’re true.

The timeline for this story is spread out across several weeks - from the murders themselves, the reports of the family going missing, the eventual discovery of the bodies, to Xavier becoming the prime suspect and the beginning of the manhunt. Since the far and away most likely suspect in this case, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, has never been caught, and there are no other witnesses to his crimes, no one knows for certain when exactly each member of the family was killed - we only know what was observed from an outsider’s perspective and what little can be gleaned from the scene of the crime.

In retrospect, in the weeks leading up to the crime, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès could not have been broadcasting his intentions more clearly. He closed the lease on the house, terminated the family’s bank accounts, and settled the final payments with the childrens’ schools.

He also went through a fair bit of effort to obtain a rifle and bullets - unlike in the United States, getting one’s hands on a gun in France can be quite a chore. The firearm Xavier had was classified as ‘Category B’ in France, which requires the owner to be affiliated with a shooting range, have attended a minimum of three shooting lessons with an instructor, and also hold a medical certificate affirming that the holder is in good mental and physical condition to possess a firearm. Xavier obtained his firearms license in February 2011, two months before his crimes were committed. He also inquired about the effects of silencers on the sound of gunshots, and ended up buying one in March of that year (2011).

Finally, Xavier made several other suspicious purchases in the days and weeks leading up to the crimes, including cement, a shovel, a hoe, large trash can liners, and adhesive plastic paving slabs.

The true timeline of l’Affaire Dupont de Ligonnès begins on April 1st, 2011. Arthur Dupont de Ligonnès, the oldest child, left his college that day but never showed up at the pizzeria where he worked to collect his paycheck, as was usual for him. His boss was quite surprised at this, as Arthur was very diligent about collecting his wages on time, but still, no one thought anything was amiss quite yet.

The next day, Saturday April 2nd, Xavier made another suspicious purchase - 4 bags of quicklime, each 10 kilograms (or about 22 pounds), from different shops around Nantes.

On April 3rd, Xavier, Agnes, and three of their children (all except Thomas, who was still at school), went out to dinner and then to the movies.

The next day, April 4th, the two youngest children, Anne and Benoit didn’t show up at school, which naturally worried their friends, especially when they were also unable to contact either Anne or Benoit online or via text. Rumors had been going around that the family was going to be leaving France because Xavier had been given a job transfer, but none of Anne or Benoit’s friends believed that their friend would have just up and left so suddenly without informing them of this transfer.

That night, Xavier travelled down to Angers to have dinner with his son Thomas at a high-end restaurant called La Croix Cadeau. The waiters recalled that Thomas seemed to be feeling unwell for much of the meal, and that father and son barely talked to each other for the entire night.

April 5th is where the timeline starts to get a little tricky - several neighbors report having seen Agnes outside the house around noon on the 5th, and possibly again on April 7th. Since prosecutors tend to believe that Xavier killed the entire family with the exception of Thomas on the night of April 3rd/morning of April 4th - an idea which is supported by Anne and Benoit not showing up to school on the 4th, and the fact that Xavier visited Thomas without the rest of the family that night - these sightings would throw the timeline completely off.

It is possible that Xavier was holding his family hostage, or otherwise convincing them not to leave the house - but, if he didn’t kill them on the 3rd or 4th, there would have been a significant amount of time they would have been left alone in the house when Xavier had dinner with Thomas nearly an hour away from the house on April 4th. More likely is that these neighbors are simply misremembering the exact day they saw Agnes, but still, it does call into question exactly when Xavier committed these murders, and the extent to which the family knew something was going on, but was unable to do anything about it.

On the night of the 5th, Thomas, who was hanging out with one of his friends in Angers, received a message from his father telling him that he needed to come home that night, as his mother had been in a cycling accident. Thomas took a train home that same night. The next day, April 6th, his friend tried reaching out to him to make sure that everything was alright - however, he only received brief responses from “Thomas,” claiming that he was ill, and that he wouldn’t be coming to class that week.

A couple days later, that friend received a text from “Thomas,” claiming that his phone charger was broken and that he was trying to find a new one. This is the last that anyone heard from Thomas. Thomas’s ex-girlfriend claimed that the day before his disappearance, Thomas had been acting strangely - he seemed down, and “lonely,” and didn’t show up to a music rehearsal he had told her that he’d attend - calling into question, again, the extent to which the rest of the family sensed Xavier’s intentions, or at least knew that something was up.

At some point during this week, neighbors heard the family dogs barking and howling for two nights in a row - after this, the dogs were also never heard from again.

Whether or not Agnes, Arthur, Anne and Benoit were killed the night of the 3rd or afterwards, investigators are almost certain that by April 6th, the entire family sans Xavier himself were dead, although some witnesses claimed to have seen Agnes on the 7th. On April 6th, Arthur’s girlfriend, understandably concerned that she hadn’t heard from her boyfriend in a few days, went to the family’s house and knocked on the door, but despite the fact that the lights on the first floor were on, no one answered, nor did the dogs bark as they normally would.

On April 7th, several people saw Xavier loading his car up with several large bags. This is also the day that several neighbors claimed to have seen and even spoken to Agnes, though obviously they could be misremembering the days.

By April 8th, Xavier was clearly preparing for his disappearance - according to investigators, April 8th was the last day the family’s IP address was used, as Xavier used the computer to write a message on a Catholic message board, and send an email to Xavier’s mother, sister, and brother-in-law, assuring them that everything was fine and that they’d hear more soon.

And hear more soon they did. April 11th is the day this case and Xavier’s actions to cover up his apparent crimes truly went from slightly odd to downright bizarre. Anne and Benoit’s school received a letter on the 11th stating that Anne and Benoit would no longer be attending that school, as the family was moving to Australia due to “urgent professional changes.” Agnes worked as an assistant at the Blanche-de-Castille Catholic School in Nantes, and the school received a similar letter, also stating that Agnes would be leaving her position for the same reason.

A typed letter dated April 11th was sent to Xavier and Agnes’s immediate family. The contents of this letter are largely what has led to conspiracies around this case, which would likely otherwise be seen as a near 100% open and shut case of a man killing his family and going on the run.

In this letter, Xavier claims that he had been covertly working for the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency, and that his family had to relocate to the United States as part of the U.S Witness Protection Program. He wrote that as a result, no one would be able to contact them for a few years, and asked his family to circulate the story that the family had moved to Australia for work reasons.

It should be noted that there is technically no proof that this letter was actually written and sent by Xavier - the letter was unsigned, and if there was ever any DNA analysis done on the letter, the results are publicly unknown. Regardless, here are a few excerpts from the letter, translated into English:

“Hi everyone!

Huge surprise: we have to leave urgently for the US, due to a very particular set of circumstances that we will explain below.

You're receiving this letter by conventional post because for the next few years, we can't communicate any other way (no emails, no texts, no phone calls) for safety reasons.

When you read this letter, we will no longer be in France and won't be able to return for an as-yet undetermined period of time (a few years).

You must be wondering what's going on…

Here's the story (as least, as much as we're allowed to tell you. This letter is the only correspondence we were allowed to write – which might be good news for some of you – and it has been checked before being sent to you).

When we started our company in Miami in 2003, we were put into contact (through the person who helped us to start the company) with the "DEA" (Drug Enforcement Administration: a sort of American "drug squad" with agents on the ground in several countries), 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.

Through the Route des Commerciaux, I found myself in a different city every evening, with a legitimate reason to make contact with nightclub bosses (to invite them to be listed in the "Leisure" section of the RDC), so I (Xavier) was the ideal candidate:

So once I was tested and briefed, I accepted my mission of working incognito for the DEA, under the condition that I maintain secrecy (which includes, even more importantly, the children). . .

With the information that I (Xavier) have collected in this time, I have become a key witness in an upcoming trial involving major international drug-trafficking kingpins. The trial will have to take place in the US in the next few years. The date has not yet been determined.

What complicates matters is that certain tips had 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 potentially dangerous for us here and has required us to take emergency measures.

When I first went undercover, I accepted that I might be placed into the "Federal Witness Protection Program". This is what we now have to do … and we're not doing it with any excitement, but because it's necessary and there's no way around it.

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.

By the time you read this letter, we will officially "no longer exist" as French citizens!

We will be "lambda" US citizens, living in the US like any other US citizen … except we will be forbidden from communicating with our family and friends for an undetermined period of time, at least until the trial is over. . .

IMPORTANT: tell the "youngsters" not to divulge any information on Facebook and not to be surprised if the kids don't reply to them. . .

The children's schools are aware, as are Arthur's and Thomas's landlords, and Agnès's and Arthur's employers.

The official story is that we have been transferred to AUSTRALIA for work, without providing any specific details.

It would be good if you could spread this false story on Facebook and elsewhere.

We hope it doesn't drag on for too many years. (But we're still anxious about how long the legal proceedings in the US will take.)

In a while from now, we will be able to send you some information by post.

We have designated Emmanuel as the "central contact" as he has the advantage of knowing almost all of you. He will be the one who receives letters to be sent on to you. He will receive instructions in good time.

Of course, we send all our love and are thinking of you very much during this enforced separation;

Take good care of yourselves.

We'll have so many stories to tell you later on!”

Now, obviously there’s a lot to unpack there, and we’ll return to the letter and what the rest of the Dupont de Ligonnès family thought of it later. Agnes’s family was, of course, immediately suspicious and sent the letter to the Nantes District Attorney’s office so they could look into it further.

Later in the day on April 11th, Xavier started to move. He spent that night at the Hotel Premiere Classe in a town near Toulouse, almost 6 hours away from Nantes by car. By the next night, he had made his way to the Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur in southeastern France, where he spent the night at the Auberge de Cassagne under the false name of Mr. Laurent Xavier, paying about 214 euros with his credit card.

By April 13th, neighbors had begun to get concerned about the Dupont de Ligonnès family - the house had been still and shuttered for about a week at this point, and Agnes’s car hadn’t moved at all in this time. They contacted the police, who went to do a wellness check at the house - discovering that it was locked, and with no one answering the door, they were forced to call a locksmith to open the front door.

When looking around, they found that everything appeared to be in place, despite the fact that no one was home. Some sheets had been removed from the beds, and some of the closet doors were open, but other than those minor things, everything seemed more or less normal, and the police concluded that the family had left voluntarily.

That night, Xavier stayed at a hotel in La Seyne sur-Mer, in the French Riviera. Xavier had previously lived in this town in the 80’s, and a former girlfriend of his told police that Xavier got in contact with her that night, though the two didn’t actually meet in person.

The next day, April 14th, Xavier withdrew 30 euros from an ATM, and stayed the night at the Hotel Formula 1 in the town of Roquebrune-sur-Argens. For context, this town is located on the southeastern coast of France along the Mediterranean Sea, just down the road from Cannes and Nice - and nearly as far away as you can get from Nantes while still being in the country of France. Xavier was captured on surveillance camera that night, the last known sighting of him.

On April 15th, Xavier checked out of the hotel, and, for lack of a better term, completely disappeared off the face of the Earth. He abandoned his car at the hotel, apparently taking off either on foot or via public transport, and he hasn’t been seen since.

That same day, April 15th, police returned to the house to do a more thorough investigation, perhaps prompted by the strange letter Xavier had sent out to family members. This time, they noticed that photos are missing from picture frames, a clear sign that whoever left doesn’t intend to return - however, they once again don’t find anything overly suspicious.

Agnes’s family was, at this point, putting pressure on police to investigate further, and they returned to the house on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of April. Still, they didn’t find anything suspicious - at least, not until their sixth visit on the 21st. This time, a lieutenant did some digging under the porch, and discovered something extremely worrying - plastic bags bound up with tape, buried in the dirt.

On April 21st, 2011 the Nantes District Attorney officially opened an investigation into the disappearances of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès and his family. In the middle of the press conference the D.A was holding to announce this, he received a phone call informing him that several bodies had been discovered underneath the porch of the family's home.

The bodies had been wrapped in blankets and duvet covers - which explains the missing sheets from the beds - then placed in the plastic bags. There were small religious items placed next to each body - a cross, a candle, a rosary, and so on - which police took to be an imitation of a religious burial, and thus that the perpetrator held some sort of affection for the victims. Testing quickly revealed that these bodies belong to Agnes, Arthur, Thomas, Anne, and Benoit Dupont de Ligonnès, as well as the family’s two labs - in other words, the entire family, with one notable exception - Xavier.

According to the autopsies, all 4 of the children had been drugged with sleeping pills and then shot with a .22 Long Rifle in the head. While there weren’t any drugs found in Agnes’s system, her sleep apnea machine suddenly stopped at 3:00am on the morning of April 4th, leading investigators to believe that this was the time of her death, and that she was the first victim.

Agnes, Arthur, Anne, and Benoit’s bodies were all found in the same grave, while Thomas’s body was in a separate grave, supporting the idea that Xavier had killed Thomas on a different day than the other 4. Journalist Anne-Sophie Martin speculates that the reason Xavier killed Thomas last is perhaps because he was hesitating to kill his eldest biological son - especially since, according to the rules of nobility, Thomas would have been his heir.

Strangely enough, there were no traces of blood in the bedrooms, nor in any of the other rooms, and no physical evidence (a.k.a DNA or fingerprints) found on the bodies. The neighbors also hadn’t heard any gunshots - however, a silencer could have muffled the sounds enough to not alert the neighbors, and as previously stated Xavier had bought a silencer in March. These were methodical executions, clearly planned out well in advance.

Given the fact that there was no sign of Xavier or his body, Xavier was immediately the number one suspect in the deaths of his wife and 4 children, and no real alternate suspect has ever been proposed by police.

The funeral was held a week later. Agnes and her children were laid to rest at the Saint-Félix church in Nantes, the same church that the family had regularly attended. Although it was a simple ceremony, more than 1,400 people turned up to pay their respects

With the discovery of Agnes and the children’s bodies, the investigation, which had started as a missing persons case, now shifted to become a manhunt. That same night, investigators discovered Xavier’s car abandoned in the Hotel Formula 1 parking lot, giving them a good place to start their search.

The first of many searches was carried out about a week later in the department of Var, where Xavier had spent his last few days before well and truly vanishing - however, this search turned up nothing but the car that had already been found, and the security tape of Xavier the day prior to his disappearance. Investigators continued to search the area extensively over the following two months, searching every nook and cranny of the mountains and caves surrounding the area with the help of mountain guides, but still, nothing of significance was found. On May 10th, 2011, an international arrest warrant was put out for Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès.

Notably, when reconstructing the days after Xavier left the house in Nantes, police noticed that Xavier wasn’t exactly trying to hide. He was going to restaurants, using his credit card, taking money out of ATMs, and was spotted several times on CCTV cameras. Considering the amount of caution and care put into making sure the crime scene was as spotless as possible, his carelessness about being seen afterwards was odd. Ultimately, this carelessness is part of what led investigators to the conclusion that Xavier intended to commit suicide - as retired Chief of Police, Jean-Marc Bloch points out, the vast majority of family annihiliators end up committing suicide shortly after murdering their families, so Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès would hardly be unusual in that respect.

In their view, Xavier wasn’t fleeing, planning to get away and start a new life, but going on a bit of a farewell tour, knowing that he didn’t need to hide since he wasn’t going to be around to be caught. Indeed, many of the towns and cities he stopped at along this tour were places from his past, places he had lived before, where his children were born. In the last CCTV image found of Xavier, from the parking lot of the Hotel Formula 1, investigators observed that the bag he was carrying appeared to have a long object lying along the bottom, which they thought very well could have been his rifle. Nantes prosecutor Brigitte Lamy has stated that investigator’s leading theory is that Xavier committed suicide somewhere in the forest around Roquebrune-sur-Argens, and that his body merely hasn’t been found. No alternate theory has really ever been proposed by police. It is worth noting, however, that most family annihilators who do intend to commit suicide do it on the spot, not after going on a joyride around the country.

The media frenzy around this case shifted into high gear following the discovery of the bodies underneath the porch - the headline ‘La maison de l'épouvante,’ or ‘The House of Terror’ was splashed across French newspapers the following day, and the murders, along with the manhunt for Xavier, became the focus of a veritable media circus. The family’s house at 55 Boulevard Robert Schuman became a huge site of interest to the locals, who left piles of bouquets at the front doorstep in memory of Agnes and the children.

Several more searches have been carried out over the years. On June 23rd, 2011, caving experts searched 40 caves within a 10 miles radius of where Xavier had last been seen, as investigators believed Xavier may have tried to escape on foot through mountains surrounding the area, and ended up perishing in one of these caves - the search, however, turned up nothing. Two more searches of the mountains and caves in the nearby area were carried out in 2013, both explicitly searching for Xavier’s body - once again, these searches were unsuccessful.

Also in 2013, a body was found approximately 12 miles away from where Xavier was last seen - the autopsy was inconclusive when it came to whether or not this body belonged to Xavier, with the last official report being that prosecutors did not believe it to be Xavier’s body. Another body was found near this area in 2015 - however, this one was definitely proven not to belong to Xavier via DNA testing. To this day, suicide remains the leading theory when it came to what happened to Xavier following his disappearance.

Indeed, the only real evidence that Xavier may still be alive comes from a letter received by a Nantes journalist in July 2015. This journalist received a photograph of two of the Dupont de Ligonnès children - Arthur and Benoit - sitting at their kitchen table. On the back was written “je suis encore vivant,” or “I’m still alive.” Of course, there’s absolutely nothing proving that this photo and note was sent by Xavier rather than someone else - although, it does beg the question how another random person got ahold of a photo of the Dupont de Ligonnès children, especially if this was just someone trolling.

As can be expected when it comes to a worldwide manhunt, there have been many reported sightings of Xavier over the years, though none of them thus far have bore any fruit. Police have received over 900 tips relating to Xavier’s whereabouts over the years - out of those 900, three stand out.

First, in 2016, a man bearing a significant resemblance to Xavier was seen on CCTV at a casino in Néris-les-Bains, a town in central France. The police combed the area looking for this man, but never found him.

Then, in January 2018, police raided a monastery in the same town where Xavier was last seen, as several worshippers had claimed that he had been hiding out there. Amusingly, police had a difficult time getting information out of the monks, as many of them had taken a vow of silence - however, they were able to gather enough information to conclude that the worshippers had merely mistook a monk who looked a bit like Xavier for the man himself.

Finally, the most well known “sighting” of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès since his disappearance was reported on October 11th, 2019, and is the only report thus far that actually led to an arrest.

When flying to certain countries, such as the U.S, Canada, France and the UK, passengers are required to fill out advanced passenger information (API) forms, with information such as their full name, nationality, birthdate and travel document. London authorities received an API alert after a passenger filled out information for a flight from Paris to Glasgow that corresponded to a stolen French passport. London Interpol informed French authorities, who suspected that this man might be Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. They planned to wait for him at the Charles de Gaulle airport, but the man made a last minute change to his flight and ended up flying the day before his original flight was scheduled. Instead, French police asked Scottish authorities to intercept him in Glasgow.

After fingerprinting the man, the Scottish Police told the French authorities “this is your man.” This, naturally, caused a huge uproar in the media - Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, a man who had killed his entire family and been on the run for 8 years at that point, had actually been found and caught.

The relief and jubilation at Xavier’s arrest was short-lived, however. After reviewing the CCTV footage of the man who was supposedly Xavier at the airport, French authorities quickly began to doubt that this man was actually Xavier, as the resemblance just wasn’t really there. Sure enough, further fingerprinting and DNA testing would reveal that this man was not, in fact, Xavier, but rather a 69-year old Portuguese-born French national who was travelling to visit his Scottish wife. Of course, the man was released without charge. This man’s passport had been stolen in 2014, which is likely what triggered the API alert - however, he had been travelling on a new, legitimate passport when he was arrested.

Naturally, this incident caused some backlash against the French media and how quick they were to run away with police statements, as well as the police themselves for not fully confirming the man’s identity before releasing information to the media. Since this 2019 report, there have been no reports of any significance regarding Xavier’s location.

Despite the apparently overwhelming evidence that Xavier killed Agnes and their children, his family has remained steadfast in their belief in Xavier’s innocence over the years. Xavier’s sister, Christine Dupont de Ligonnès, has been the family’s mouthpiece for much of their suspicions around the nature of the murders and Xavier’s disappearance. At first, immediately following the family’s disappearances, Christine spoke out against the legitimacy of the letter Xavier had supposedly sent, claiming that he and his family were being placed into the Witness Protection Program in the U.S.

However, in the following years she would change her tune, instead claiming that Xavier and his family had indeed been relocated to the U.S, and that the bodies found under the porch did not actually belong to Agnes and the children. Admittedly, the suspicion that the bodies didn’t belong to Agnes and the children was not entirely unfounded - the speed at which the prosecutor in Nantes allowed the victims to be buried, combined with the fact that the family was advised to not view the bodies, certainly does raise some eyebrows. There has never, however, been a legitimate alternate theory proposed as to who these bodies could have belonged to, if not Agnes, Arthur, Thomas, Anne and Benoit.

In 2013, in a blog Christine wrote with her husband Bertram, Christine wrote about an email that Xavier had apparently sent to a couple of friends in 2010. In this email, Xavier speculated about “accidents” that may happen to his family in the future, ending the email with an strangely chilling sentence:

“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).”

Xavier’s family has taken this email as evidence of some conspiracy around the family - that someone, for whatever reason, was planning to frame Xavier for the murder of his family, or that the family’s entry into the Witness Protection Program would somehow make it look as though Xavier had killed his family. What seems more likely, however, is that Xavier had been planning to kill his family for some time, and was planting the seeds to make his family believe in his innocence well ahead of actually committing the murders.

On this blog, Christine also wrote extensively about what was, in her view, the improbability of Xavier being able to successfully bury Agnes and the children underneath the porch. The space under the porch was about 1.2 meters (or just under 4 feet) high, meaning that whoever buried the bodies there would’ve had to be working on their hands and knees, without the assistance of long tools like the shovel and hoe Xavier had purchased. Xavier apparently had back and neck problems, so Christine believed he may not have been physically capable of burying the bodies in this space.

His family and friends also cite Xavier’s apparent deep love of his family as reason to believe he wasn’t the one who murdered them - he was, according to those who knew the family, a very involved and caring father. His friend Bruno also points out Xavier’s aristocratic lineage as evidence that Xavier wouldn’t have murdered his children - after all, Xavier took his noble roots very seriously, and by killing his children he was effectively wiping out his own lineage.

The family’s lawyer, one Mr. Goldstein, made a public statement in 2015 largely reflecting the family’s belief that Xavier was not the one who killed his family, and that the bodies found indeed may not even belong to Agnes and the children. His statement, translated from French, is as follows:

"We don't even know when the victims were killed. The autopsy points to death between 10 and 21 days before their discovery. Such imprecision is truly astonishing. [...] In reality, nothing is certain in this affair, other than the fact that some bodies were found at 55 Boulevard Robert Schuman. [...] Investigations were carried out, but all that they have allowed us to ascertain is that the bodies share the same DNA. No analysis has compared this common DNA with that of Agnès Hodanger. Furthermore, my client confirms that the bodies' heights and weights do not correspond to the known dimensions of the family members. In my opinion, this constitutes negligence during the autopsy. But the autopsy allows Christine and Geneviève (Xavier’s sister and mother) to step into the breach. [...] What I also know is that one man alone cannot dig that hole under the patio, even a man blinded by rage and hatred: 2.5 cubic metres (3.25 cubic yards) of earth was displaced. The affair (meaning case) is based on the idea that Xavier Dupont killed his family before burying them. No other line of inquiry has been explored. I don't know who killed this family. Nothing about their lives would lead me to believe that anyone would have it in for them to this extent. That is the conclusion of my clients. Since no one could have killed them, the fact is that they are not dead.”

Perplexing, to say the least, particularly that last sentence:

“Since no one could have killed them, the fact is that they are not dead.”

While something could have been lost in translation, this is quite the conclusion to jump to - in the full, original quote, the lawyer claims that the family believes that since no one had a clear reason to kill the Dupont de Ligonnès family, then they aren’t dead and the story Xavier sold them about being sent into the Witness Protection Program must be true. Sadly, however, this line of logic just doesn’t pan out - people are killed for no good reason every day, and if Xavier did in fact kill his family - by far the most likely conclusion of this story, despite minor inconsistencies - he actually did have a likely motivation, twisted and incomprehensible as it may be.

Since Xavier has not yet been found, his motivations for committing these heinous crimes can’t be 100% confirmed - however, there is enough information out there that we can extrapolate where his mind might have been at when he decided to kill his family.

As previously stated, the Dupont de Ligonnès family was an old, aristocratic family - technically, Xavier was known as “Count” Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. However, in France today, being descended from the aristocracy obviously doesn’t inherently bring with it wealth and power that it once did. The legal status of the French nobility was abolished during the French Revolution, and nowadays being descended from French nobility generally means you have a meaningless title, and little more. Some families managed to retain their wealth, and/or their fancy homes, but many more didn’t, or gradually lost them over time.

And, despite the Dupont de Ligonnès family putting on an outward appearance of a wholesome, well-off family, with a nice house and children in private schools, a little digging reveals that everything was not quite as it seemed.

In the early 2000s, the Dupont de Ligonnès family attempted to move to Florida, thinking that relocating and starting a new life in the U.S would be relatively simple for them - however, it turned out to be more complicated than they had initially thought, and they ended up moving back to France. This failed American dream wiped out a lot of the money Xavier had saved up, and the following decade, from 2001 to 2011, his failures and financial difficulties began to build up. Xavier put up a front of being a successful businessman, running several companies - however, in truth, his companies weren’t really all that successful.

By the end of the 2000’s, it was becoming more and more clear that the money was drying up, and that eventually, Xavier would have to leave behind aspects of his aristocratic life, such as the nice house - however, according to friends and family, what was more important to Xavier was, in effect, his pride. He didn’t want to be revealed as a fraud, as someone unsuccessful, especially to his children - as Bruno de Stabenrath put it:

“He’s vain, proud. He doesn’t want to lose face. He doesn’t want his children to find out he’s got no money, that he’s ruined.”

The death of Xavier’s father, Hubert, in January 2011 - only 3 months before the murders - very nearly gave Xavier the out that he was looking for. His father’s neighbor and friend, Michael Calvi, describes how Xavier searched through his father’s belongings, looking intently for any money or valuables that might have been set aside - however, he came up empty handed.

In fact, his father had been having pretty severe money problems in the last few years of his life as well - again, being an aristocrat in France these days does not necessarily correspond with wealth and prosperity. Journalist Anne-Sophie Martin speculates that Xavier may have seen his future self reflected in the end of his father’s life - lonely and living in relative poverty, having fallen from the grace and splendor of the nobility. Xavier did find one thing in his father’s possessions, however - a .22 rifle, the same one he would use only a month or so later when obtaining his firearms license.

So, the general conclusion seems to be that Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès killed his family in order to cover up his own shame at being, in effect, a disgraced aristocrat, someone who failed to live up to the lofty expectations set for him by his family name. Most people may not understand this motivation - after all, why not just get a normal job, live in a less expensive house, why kill your family for what essentially amounts to money troubles? However, pride and shame are surprisingly potent motivators, and everyone who knew Xavier said that he was extremely proud of his family name and his noble status, even if it legally didn’t mean much in modern France.

Financial distress and concern over appearances are also extremely common motivations in the twisted minds of family annihilators - in their heads, they’re actually sparing their family from shame and the struggle of poverty. Add in the pressure that comes with an aristocratic name and status, and you have a pretty deadly cocktail, one that it seems pushed Xavier to commit these horrific acts, stripping his wife and children of their future for his own stubborn pride.

Ultimately, although there is still some room for doubt, the most likely conclusion to this sad tale is that Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, despite having no criminal record, managed to perfectly plan out his crimes in order to deceive investigators, and buy himself enough time to get away, whether that was to end his life or to start a new one. He made sure that it would be a good while before the bodies were discovered, and planted a story about his family being relocated, which served the dual purpose of buying him more time, and giving his family an alternate story to hold on to, so that he could remain innocent in their eyes.

Meanwhile, in large part due to his deceptions, the rest of his family has been left grasping at straws, holding on to their belief that Xavier was somehow innocent of these crimes, despite all the evidence heavily pointing to the contrary.

The ultimate fate of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès is still a mystery. Investigators remain steadfast that he committed suicide, and that his body has simply gone unfound - however, it has been pointed out that Roquebrune-sur-Argens is quite close to the sea, and it would be fairly easy to take a boat to Italy, or a train to Croatia or any other number of countries.

Although completely disappearing in this day and age is incredibly difficult, it’s not quite impossible - Xavier spoke French (of course) as well as English and Spanish very well, so he theoretically could have fit in quite well in a number of countries. He also, as the retired Chief of Police, Jean-Marc Bloch put it “looks a bit like everybody else” - he has a rather generic face, is of average height and overall just very neutral looking, and thus, tends to blend in with the crowd. And of course, when it comes to manhunts “there’s nothing worse than physically normal people,” as Jean-Marc put it. “You spot him everywhere and nowhere at the same time.”

Given that he has gone unfound for over 10 years now, whether Xavier is dead or alive, it seems likely that l’Affaire Dupont de Ligonnès will remain, at least on paper, unresolved.

Episode Information

Episode Information

Research & writing by Olivia Paradice

Hosting & production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on October 16th, 2021

Producers: Roberta Janson, Sara Moscaritolo, Travis Scsepko, Ben Krokum, Quil Carter, Jo Wong, Laura Hannan, Steven Wilson, Damion Moore, Scott Meesey, Scott Patzold, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Denise Grogan, Teunia Elzinga, Ryan Green, Sally Ranford, James Herington, Jacinda Class, Stephanie Joyner, Rebecca O'Sullivan, James Weis, Kevin McCracken, Brooke Bullek, Shane Robinson, Lauren Nicole, Stacey Houser, and Sara Rosario

Music Credits

Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music

Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves

Sources and other reading

Wikipedia - Dupont de Ligonnès murders and disappearance

France24 - “Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: Murder, mystery and an 8-year manhunt”

France24 - “‘I am still alive’: Alleged fugitive French killer contacts media”

Le Parisien - “Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, the trajectory of a jack-of-all-trades”

Le Parisien - “Nantes: the mother and the four children executed in their sleep”

Le Monde - “An international arrest warrant is issued against Xavier de Ligonnès”

The Huffington Post - “A signed photo ‘Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès’ sent to a journalist from France”

Lefigaro - “Nantes drama: five bodies exhumed, the father (not) located”

Le Point - “Dupont de Ligonnès - Stéphane Goldenstein case: ‘In this case, there is no certainty’“

Le Parisien - “When Xavier de Ligonnès spoke of ‘setting the house on fire’”

RFI - “Don't look under the patio, alleged murderer's letter says”

France24 - “Man believed to be suspect in 2011 French family killing arrested in Scotland”