his sister Christine gives a “phantasmagorical” version of the affair in a book

Nearly thirteen years after the disappearance of her brother, Christine Dupont de Ligonnès explains in a book published Wednesday why she continues to think that he is innocent, while numerous elements against him make him the main suspect in the death of her family.

She thinks her brother is alive and she wants “restore one’s true face”. Christine Dupont de Ligonnès, sister of the most wanted man in France, publishes, Wednesday March 13, a book entitled Xavier my presumed innocent brother, co-written with her husband Bertram de Verdun. Since Saturday, the couple has been invited in several media to develop their thesis on the most high-profile criminal case of recent decades. Suspected of having killed his wife and four children in April 2011 in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was never found, despite the international arrest warrant issued against him.

The bodies of Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and her four children, aged 13 to 21, as well as the corpses of the couple’s two dogs, were found on April 21, 2011, buried under the terrace of the family home, in the garden. But for Christine Dupont de Ligonnès, it is a “staging”. Facing Léa Salamé, on the set of the show “Quelle époque”, broadcast on France 2 on Saturday March 9, she explains that she believes in the theory according to which Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was exfiltrated to the United States with his wife and his children by American intelligence services. This is the version given in a letter written by his brother and addressed to relatives to explain the family’s absence.

However, this letter, which constitutes “the basis of the investigation”is not “only a pure fiction”, according to journalist Anne-Sophie Martin, who investigated this affair at length and published a book, The Disappeared. “It’s a letter that gives his loved ones something to think about so that they can defend him,” she estimates from franceinfo.

“Extrapolated” autopsy errors

The five remains buried under the terrace would therefore not be the bodies of Agnès, Benoît, Anne, Thomas and Arthur Dupont de Ligonnès? “The multiple anomalies that we expose suggest the possibility of a substitution”, declares their aunt and sister-in-law, in Paris Match. During the interview given to the weekly, she then details inconsistencies which appear, according to her, in the autopsy. This one “is sloppy”, maintained his lawyer Stéphane Goldenstein, Tuesday on Europe 1.

“It is true that in the report from the Nantes forensic institute there are material errors, on the size of Agnès for example. There is also confusion between two siblings”points out Anne-Sophie Martin, who was able to consult the investigation file, still under investigation at the Nantes judicial court. “But Christine Dupont de Ligonnès extrapolates”, underlines the journalist, who specifies that the autopsy also establishes that sleeping pills were administered to the children.

During Anne-Sophie Martin’s investigation into the affair for the magazine “Envoyé Spécial”, broadcast on France 2 in October 2013, the Nantes public prosecutor confirmed to her, on camera, that the bodies were indeed those of Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and the couple’s children, based on the results of DNA analyses. “For us, it is very insufficient, since no one has been able to approach them,” however, supported Christine Dupont de Ligonnès and her husband on RTL, Wednesday morning.

“We don’t have to follow them or say that it works”

For her investigation, Anne-Sophie Martin met the couple in 2013. The thesis that the sister and brother-in-law of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès defend today was already the one they supported at the time. They then wrote a blog, since closed, to expose the flaws in the file and the investigation, as well as the interpretation they drew from it. “It’s phantasmagorical. When families become civil parties, they have access to the file. They have the right to have their version, but we are not obliged to follow them or say that it holds up”, underlines the journalist.

While Christine Dupont de Ligonnès regrets that her brother is “condemned without trial”, Anne-Sophie Martin invites us to respect the presumption of innocence: “There is no material and formal evidence of his guilt.” But many serious and consistent elements remain in the eyes of justice, which still make Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès the number 1 suspect in the quintuple assassination, whatever his sister thinks.