On September 5, 2012, three members of the same family and a cyclist were killed in more than mysterious circumstances. Their bodies were found near a parking lot, in the town of Chevaline in Haute-Savoie. More than 10 years after the events, the case has still not been solved, despite numerous investigations by the police. No suspect or motive has been identified to date.
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An intriguing crime scene
English of Iraqi origin, the Al-Hili family had come to spend a holiday in France, near Lake Annecy. After visiting a few surrounding villages, the family heads for the Martinet car park, near the forest road.
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Among the members of this family, the father (50 years old), the mother (47 years old) and the grandmother (74 years old) were found shot dead in a red BMW station wagon, mired and full of blood. But whose blood? Family members of course, but also Sylvain Mollier, a 45-year-old cyclist from the region, whose body was found lying next to the car.
Was he run over by the vehicle, whose engine is still running and whose wheels continue to turn? Very quickly, the investigators discovered that the body of Sylvain Mollier is, like the members of the Al-Hili family, riddled with bullets.
Not far from the vehicle, a seven-year-old girl (Zainab) is discovered by the police, staggering and covered with wounds on the level of the skull. Sent to the hospital, the little girl comes out of it with a head trauma. But that’s not all. During the search of the car, the investigators were far from imagining what they were going to discover: a 4-year-old girl (Zeena), hidden for many hours under the skirt of her late mother.
A total of 21 bullets were fired in less than a minute and a half. But who could be behind this carnage? The investigators, after the brief details given by Zainab, paint the portrait of a cold-blooded killer, a collector of firearms and accustomed to handling specific weapons. Indeed, the weapon identified as being the one having caused the death of the victims is a Luger semi-automatic pistol, a very popular weapon because it was used by the Swiss army until the 1960s. After several searches in the files, the investigators call Éric Devouassoux, a municipal policeman. After comparing the DNAs (two unknown DNAs were found), he was cleared.
Many avenues have been explored over the years
Several leads were explored by investigators. At first, the police looked for the Al-Hilli family. During their investigation, they discover that Saad, the father of the family, was in conflict with his brother Zaid over the inheritance of their father, a wealthy entrepreneur.
Indeed, at the time of their father’s death, the two brothers presented two very different wills: one evoking an equitable division of property, the other totally disinheriting Saad. Very quickly suspected by the investigators, Zaid was nevertheless released without prosecution, following an inconclusive police custody.
©Steve Parsons/PA Wire/ABACA
A second track has been studied by the police: that of Iraq, a country where Saad is known as an aeronautical engineer. Was he suspected of industrial espionage? The research stops very quickly, for lack of means on the spot and real suspects.
A third track has also emerged: Saad’s wife, Iqbal, was married to an American entrepreneur, James Dudley Thompson, found dead at the wheel of his car on the same day as the Chevaline massacre! After several searches, no link has been established between these two cases, which are very similar…
The search is accelerating…
In 2013, searches revealed the profile of a mysterious biker, whom investigators took two years to identify. First considered as a simple witness, he quickly became the potential suspect in this case.
William Brett Martin, an English tourist who discovered the crime scene, is formal: he saw this man near the crime scene. A version corroborated by the agents of the national forest office, who also saw him in the parking lot where the four victims were found.
The main suspect, a Lyon entrepreneur without problem
At the time of his hearing, the suspect explains that he was near the parking lot because he was returning home after a baptism of hang-gliding. He keeps repeating that he didn’t see or hear anything that day. A version that puzzles the investigators, for whom it is impossible for this man to make “the link between the facts of Chevaline and his passage nearby despite the media hype” as revealed The Parisian.
Except that to date, there is nothing to link him to this quadruple homicide. Especially since after yet another police custody, the gendarmes concluded that he was definitely not the culprit. All the charges against him have not been retained and the investigation is therefore continuing, without any suspects to date.
Research relaunched 10 years after the facts
10 years after the events, the prosecutor of Annecy Lise Bonnet asked to transfer this file to the new judicial center of Nanterre intended for cold cases, having more time and means to solve these investigations left to the abandonment.
One of the greatest legal enigmas
For investigators, the mystery remains. Who could have carried out this quadruple murder, and especially why? During this decade, the investigators really put everything in place to try to flush out the identity of the killer: 90 gendarmes were mobilized, 700 witnesses were interviewed and around fifty leads in France, but also in the four corners of the world. (Iraq, New Zealand, Canada, Costa Rica, etc.), have been studied.
Hoping that we can finally understand what really happened during this sinister day… Case to follow.
LR