INTERVIEW
What if the Dupont de Ligonnès affair, one of the greatest French criminal mysteries, was resolved in the United States? We are not there yet, but since the Netflix platform dedicated an episode of his series Unsolved Mysteries - The Extraordinary Investigations , American subscribers are passionate about this news item and believe, everywhere, to see this man, suspected of '' killed his wife and four children in 2011 in Nantes. "It takes a little click, a little miracle, something for this story to eventually be resolved", enthuses Europe 1 Anne-Sophie Martin, journalist, author of a book ( Le Disparu , à éditions Ring) devoted to the case, and that testifies in the documentary.
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"Maybe somewhere someone will recognize him ..."
"Whenever I have worked on the case since 2013, I have said to myself: 'Maybe, somewhere, someone will recognize him ...'", continues the investigator, who recalls that investigators from the PJ of Nantes have received more than 1,000 reports in this case. "Immediately, in the first 24 hours when you find your abandoned car in a Var parking lot, there are people who see it on a bus, at a cafe terrace, walking in the mountains ..."
Because if the suspect is "a man like everyone else", it is not uncommon for someone to think of identifying him. I remember one of his very close friends who said to me: 'It is true that he can grow a beard, shave his hair, change glasses, even wear colored lenses, this is his approach. that I would recognize, "says Anne-Sophie Martin.
>> HONDELATTE RACONTE - Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: listen to the story of the case
"It's the perfect disappearance, for now"
For the journalist, who has been working on this file for years, the error of the French police is "to have thought immediately" that Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès "had committed suicide" near Fréjus, where he was last seen. "However, the hunters we interviewed told us: 'we raked so much everywhere that if he had been there, we would have found him'." Result, she said: "There is no more investigation in France, it's stalled. It's the perfect disappearance, for now."
Anne-Sophie Martin goes further and affirms that "the police investigators have been almost caught by internet users". "From the start, the French geeks had found elements on him (Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, editor's note ) and his wife that the police did not yet have," she explains. A site now offers viewers of the Netflix series to testify, if they have information to contribute. "I even received messages from Latin America, it's continental," smiles the journalist. "I don't see how it would interfere with the investigation. It doesn't harm anything."