A Frenchman found hanged in Paraguay, his family files a complaint for homicide

Florian Géraud, 43, was found hanged in an abandoned building in the Paraguayan capital on January 4. Local justice is leaning towards suicide, but the victim’s relatives do not believe it.

Mystery surrounding the death of a Frenchman found hanged in Paraguay. Florian Géraud, 43, was discovered on January 4 in an abandoned pizzeria in Asuncion, the capital of the South American country, franceinfo learned from the family on Thursday January 11. This man arrived in the country on December 11, 2023. He came to spend a month there with a very good friend, where he planned to go sightseeing and film a documentary on an indigenous people.

The Frenchman had just spent the evening with his Paraguayan friend and relatives. At 3 a.m., the guests left tired. His friend joined his fiancée, he remained alone at home. On video surveillance images collected from neighbors and broadcast by the local press, we see Florian Géraud, in shorts and flip-flops, leaving the house around 3 a.m., heading towards the south of the city and returning around 4 a.m. At 4:57 a.m., he leaves again towards the North, he will not return.

“It doesn’t hold water”

The man was found four days later hanging, sitting on a chair in a squat several kilometers away. According to Paraguayan judicial authorities, quoted in local media, who carried out the autopsy, “There is no evidence to suggest that there was intervention by other people.” The death, according to the authorities, occurred following mechanical asphyxiation.

“Florian, he’s not the guy who had dark thoughts, not at all.”

Eric, the victim’s father

at franceinfo

Paraguayan justice leans towards the theory of suicide. A hypothesis in which Florian Géraud’s father, Eric, does not believe. “I spoke to him on the phone on December 30, he was very happy with his trip, he says. For us, that doesn’t hold water. Frankly, it would be a betrayal to let him go like that. The circumstances of his disappearance seem strange. If it is a murder, it is not a trivial murder, but a premeditated murder, where a location, a staging, has been prepared to make it happen. I know it won’t bring him back. Afterwards, I know that there, if they don’t want to look, they won’t find it.”

The parents hope for the opening of a joint judicial investigation in France. They are now waiting for the analysis of the data from their son’s phone found near the body.