Video Is Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès a “copycat” having imitated the American killer John List, arrested eighteen years after having eliminated five members of his family?

Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès is this father suspected of having killed his wife and four children in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) at the beginning of April 2011. The bodies of the victims were discovered by the police on the 21st of this month, under the terrace of their house. And he has since disappeared without a trace. Eliminate his family and invent a new life… Like John List, an uneventful accountant who coldly murdered his family in 1971, in the United States, before being arrested eighteen years after the tragedy by the FBI?

This bloody news story was covered by all the media in the country at the time… the year the Nantes salesman was living across the Atlantic. So, is France’s most wanted man a “copycat”, an impersonator acting similar to an action read or seen in the press? These family killings have very disturbing similarities in the preparation and in the modus operandi. The two fathers managed to elude the police and escape…

Two planned, methodical massacres, leaving nothing to chance

The American drama took place in a residential area of ​​Westfield, New Jersey. Police officer Barney Tracy, who led the investigation, remembers for the magazine “1:15 p.m. on Sunday” (replay): “It was shocking because that doesn’t happen in a place like Westfield. We never have such violent crimes. He killed the people he was supposed to love the most, which makes no sense (… ) but John List was a selfish man.” Unemployed and crippled with debts, the killer planned the death of his family, methodically, leaving nothing to chance.

John List first kills his mother, who lives upstairs in the opulent house, with a pistol bullet, then kills his wife, two of his children on their return from school and executes a third a little more late. So as not to arouse suspicion: he turns the air conditioner on all the way to prevent odors and leaves the lights on; put an end to the delivery of newspapers and milk; explains to the children’s schools that the family has moved… And when the bodies are discovered by the police, he is already far away. Like Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès whom some of his relatives believe is still alive?

Excerpt from the series “The disappeared > Episodes 3”, broadcast in “1:15 p.m. on Sunday” on April 9, 2023.

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