France in international search for killer father

French authorities issued an international search alert yesterday for Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, suspected of murdering his wife and four children before going on the run.

The 50-year-old businessman is being hunted by police after the bodies of his family were found buried under the garden patio of the family home in the Brittany city of Nantes last Thursday.

Autopsies carried out last Friday showed that they had been “methodically” shot by a .22 calibre firearm similar to one recently inherited by Dupont de Ligonnes.

Wife Agnes 49, daughter Anne, 16, and three sons aged 13 to 20 were apparently shot dead in their sleep and tests are under way to see if they were drugged beforehand.

The missing man was last seen on April 15, when he left a budget hotel at Roquebrune-sur-Argens in the Var region on France’s Mediterranean coast, abandoning one of the family cars in the car park.

Nantes prosecutor Xavier Ronsin, who announced the international alert, said Dupont de Ligonnes had severe money troubles, with debts of at least €50,000 and declared income of just €4,000.

But on April 12 he had stayed at a luxury hotel also in the south of France, where staff remembered him as being very relaxed, the manageress said yesterday.

“He was very well dressed and didn’t appear to have a care in the world,” Sylvie Boucher at the five-star Auberge de Cassagne near Avignon told AFP, adding: “It is very surprising.”

Arriving around 6.30 p.m., “he filled out the form in the name of Xavier Laurent (his two first names) and gave his address in Nantes,” Boucher said.

“He took a prestige suite, it was the only one we had free. He even got a special rate of around €220 because he said he was a member of a business federation and in the area for work.”

Afterwards he dined alone, ordering half a bottle of burgundy, she added.