Police are looking for the father of a 'perfect' family of five found buried in the garden, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAICin Paris.
FRANCE HAS been riveted for weeks by the terrible story of the Dupont de Ligonnès family; their provincial middle-class life, their aristocratic ancestry, their ordinary routines, their disappearance.
On April 22nd, police in the western city of Nantes found the bodies of Agnès, a 49-year-old school assistant, and her four children – sons aged 21, 18 and 13 and a daughter aged 16 – buried in the back garden of their townhouse, along with the remains of their two Labradors. Each one had been shot dead.
The family home showed no sign of violence, the parents’ bank accounts indicated no recent activity, but the father of the household, Xavier, a 50-year-old online business manager, had vanished.
Some days later, one of his cars was found parked outside a hotel in the south of France, but an international arrest warrant and an extensive manhunt involving helicopter and underwater police units has failed to find any trace of the man.
Slowly, details of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès’s movements in recent months have emerged. It is understood he joined a gun club in Nantes last December, that his business was faltering and that he was struggling with doubt over his Catholic faith, but outwardly, friends and family say, nothing seemed amiss.
Around the time of their disappearance, the children’s school was suddenly informed the family was moving to Australia. Agnès’s employer also received a letter, explaining that the family was emigrating and that she would not be returning to work.
Yesterday, Le Figaropublished what it said was a letter written by Mr Dupont de Ligonnès to his relatives in early April. "Hi everyone! Mega-surprise: we've left suddenly for the USA in special circumstances that we'll explain below," begins the letter, dated April 8th. By the time you read this, we will no longer be in France and will not be able to return indefinitely (several years)," it continues.
He purportedly claimed in the four-page letter that he was an undercover US agent and had to leave France, along with his family, for security reasons.
Lawyers for some of Mr Dupont de Ligonnès's family members expressed doubt yesterday over whether he wrote the letter cited by Le Figaro, however.
Police say Mr Dupont de Ligonnès was last seen with his family on April 3rd, when the parents and three of their children dined together in a restaurant in Nantes. The following day, he had dinner with his son Thomas near Angers, where the boy was studying.
Days after the five bodies were discovered, the father’s Citroën was found outside a hotel in Roquebrune-sur-Argens in southeastern France, where he spent one night alone.
A large-scale police search has focused on a zone of 25sq km around the hotel.
Divers have searched local lakes and a nearby forest has been combed, but so far no trace has been found.
“We’re not excluding anything. We want to know whether Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès is here,” said Eric Petit, the officer in charge of the operation.