MURDEROUS INSANITY

Saturday Telegraph Sydney Australia 23/4/2011. 

PARIS: Police are searching for a father of four after discovering five bodies, believed to be his wife and children, buried under a patio. A source said an 'active search' had been launched for husband and father Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, 50, after the macabre find in their hometown of Nantes. Business manager de Ligonnes, his 49-year-old school assistant wife and their children -sons aged 21, 18 and 13 and a girl aged 16 - disappeared earlier this month from their home. De Ligonnes had earlier told acquaintances he was a secret agent and was leaving the area to join a witness protection scheme. Police investigating the disappearances found a section of human leg in the garden of the greystone two-storey house yesterday morning. Gradually, they unearthed five bodies, prosecutor Xavier Ronsin said. Three bodies, those of mother Agnes 49, and her two oldest sons, Thomas 21, and Arthur 18, were exhumed from under a patio of the house. Mr Ronsin said they died 'in all likelihood by firearm.' later in the day a 'a fourth body, that of 16 year-old Anne, was exhumed along with the family's two dogs.' The prosecutor's office said a fifth body - that of 13-year-old son Benoit - had also been discovered. The investigation of a disappearance has become kidnap and murder, said Mr Ronsin, adding there was no sign of violence in the house. He said de Ligonnes had settled the children's school fees, saying they planned to emigrate to Australia. But investigators could find no records suggesting the family had made any major bank transactions or passed through a port or airport. The prosecutor described de Ligonnes' tale of espionage as 'self-contradictory ravings. S/T 23/4/2011.