Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes: Family Murdered, Father Vanishes

By Bruce Gain

(The complete story can be found here at TruTV's Website or click on the hypertext link above and below: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/family/dupont-de-ligonnes/the-perfect-family.html

The Perfect Family

The Dupont de Ligonnes family was the embodiment of the modern-day bourgeois French household in the eyes of the community. With a large house in the chic and expensive part of Nantes, France, the four children attended local private schools where upper-crust families from the coastal city sent their families. But Xavier, the father, was more than a member of the city's upper-middleclass elite; he was as also an aristocrat, with a direct linage to French nobles dating back prior to the French Revolution in the 18th century.

The four Dupont de Ligonnes children.

Xavier had to spend a lot of time away from home to manage his business ventures, which his circle of friends, relatives, and acquaintances thought were flourishing. Xavier did not have to worry about his children's care when he was away on business. His wife, Agnes, whose job as a catechism teacher at the local Blanche-de-Castille Catholic high school never kept her from being there when the children were home sick, needed someone to fix their meals, or anything else that required motherly attention.

Xavier, when he was home, led an active social life with his wife, and they both seemed to enjoy each other's company when seen in public. They often dined together with the rest of the family at a local pizzeria on Sundays. When Xavier was in town, he and his wife would occasionally take square dancing classes with other couples, who admired how happy the husband and wife seemed.

Neighbors saw the four kids running and laughing with the family Labradors in the yard. The house also served as a popular and welcoming place where the mother would serve snacks to friends her children invited over after school.

The first sign of trouble came when close friends and relatives received a letter from Xavier saying that he was an undercover agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and that the family had to move away to an undisclosed location under the witness protection program. Friends and relatives were stunned. Xavier was gone a lot for his work, but no one knew that he had ties to undercover police, much less DEA agents in the United States.

But then, very bad news followed after Xavier sent the mysterious email. When police were called to investigate the family's disappearance, investigators dropped a bombshell: the mother, the three sons, and the daughter were found dead, individually rolled-up in sleeping bags and buried underneath the patio in the backyard. Autopsy reports would later reveal that they had been drugged before they were shot, except for Agnes, who was probably shot first.

Expecting to find Xavier's body nearby the crime scene, investigators soon learned that Xavier was alive and well and had driven to southern France where credit card records revealed that he had stayed at a chic hotel for a few nights. Then, less than two weeks after his family was found murdered, Xavier abandoned his Citroen C5 near a cheap hotel almost 700 miles away from Nantes near the French Rivera. Then he vanished.

An international arrest warrant was issued for Xavier, who officials said could be anywhere. French investigators then began making inquiries about Xavier's background in hopes of uncovering clues about where they might be able to find the man whom the French press called the "Most Wanted Man in France."

The first truth to emerge was that Xavier was not an advertising executive, which the press initially reported. And he certainly was not a successful businessman, either, as investigators quickly unraveled a web of deceit and lies Xavier had crafted to maintain appearances of wealth and affluence while drowning in financial ruin.

Jules Verne Is Just the Beginning

by Bruce Gain

© Th. Martinez/ BPCE

Loick Peyron and his Banque Populaire team arrive in Brest, France, after breaking the Jules Verne record with a 45-day circumnavigation.

My original article is on the main page of Sailing World: www.sailingworld.com 

Earlier this month, Loick Peyron and his 13-member crew completed a 45-day, round-the-world sprint aboard the 130-foot trimaran Banque Populaire V to earn the Jules Verne trophy. Since then, Peyron and crew have been the center of media attention in France. Primetime newscasts here show BPV arriving in Brest, where more than 1,000 spectators braved the winter weather just to catch a glimpse of Peyron and company. It was as if the crowd was gathered at the Cannes Film Festival, trying to steal a peak at Johnny Depp or Penelope Cruz.
A few days later, Peyron appeared on the French equivalent of the David Letterman show, Le Petit Journal. During the show, he wowed the audience by commenting on a video shot while BPV was sailing past icebergs, which made the massive multihull seem like a dinghy in comparison.
But despite his celebrity status in France during the past few days, Peyron remains level headed during his interviews. His message to the public—that is, when he is asked about sailing instead of silly, Oprah Winfrey-like subjects—is that Banque Populaire’s Jules Verne record will likely be short-lived. French multihull designs will only continue to get better and faster during the years to come, he says.
Peyron shared his perspective when he spoke to me by satellite phone a few days before arriving in Brest. At the time, BPV was heading north from the Azores, doing about 25 knots. Breaking the record is not so much about seamanship skills as it is about technology, he said. The next team will break the record when French multihull knowhow is applied to build a bigger and faster giant than BPV, which Pascal Bidégorry designed and the late Hubert Desjoyeaux, father of Michel Desjoyeaux, built. Peyron says it's the fastest long-distance boat in the world.
What is really exiting in multihull long-distance sailing is what is yet to come, Peyron said, as more recent advances like hydrofoil boats and rigid wings find their way into massive multihull designs in the future. “It almost goes without saying that our Jules Verne time will be bested again," he said, speaking over the noise that a 23-metric-ton multihull with a mast as high as the Statue of Liberty makes when it's plunging through the Atlantic at 25 knots. "Huge advances have been made [in offshore sailing technology] during the past thirty years, and multihull technology will certainly continue to evolve. In fact, we are at the beginning of a new era in multihulls.”
We could also be at the start of a new era in offshore racing, as sailors begin to push these fast-yet-fragile boats much harder than Peyron would be willing to do. With the same caliber of boat, another skipper and crew will be tempted to push the envelope more than Banque Populaire’s mostly French team did. “I would even go as far to say that an Anglo-Saxon team can be more radical and aggressive than French teams are when sailing this type of boat,” Peyron said.
A more radical crew could have taken more risks and pushed the boat faster, but according to Peyron, there's a price to pay. “Speed, of course, is a variable that is associated with risks, which means that breaking these records will involve more safety concerns and [off-shore sailing] will become that much more hazardous."