Ann Heron murder (Darlington, 1990): media trawl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhXJ3dx3Ck

Crimewatch October 1990 - witness account of blue car heading towards Darlington (05:43)

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/6982335.driver-saw-speed-away-ann-herons-house-killer/

[witness account of blue car leaving Aeolian House]

We watched as the car accelerated away towards Middleton St George, soon becoming a blue dot on the horizon.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2049836.near-miss-murderer/

[Article reprinted with attribution - 2008]

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/7149717.horror-summers-day/

Two months after her death, BBC1 Crimewatch staged a reconstruction, and later that month, Darlington police received a typed tip-off identifying potential suspects.

Another desperate television appeal six weeks later, this time on Tyne Tees Crimestoppers, resulted in only five further phone calls.

However, less than a year after her death, three Darlington men were arrested in connection with the murder, but later released.

While she [AH] was on a trip to Darlington, she met successful businessman Mr Heron, who offered her a chance for a new and exciting life of holidays overseas and a break from responsibilities.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNXAMmTN_5E

The Murder of Ann Heron: Darlington | Murdertown Podcast Series 2 Episode 5 [Crime + Investigation UK]

“A large, distinctive cb style aerial was attached to the car, with chrome coiled springs.” (9:28) 

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https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/mayyso/the_beauty_in_the_bikini_murder_the_30_year_old/

Reddit summary with links to press articles.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13573612.ann-heron-murder-after-pain-deserve-closure---daughters-appeal-room-mother-found-dead/

Unusually her mother [AH] had been trying to get in touch with her father in the weeks previously and Ms Cockburn says she felt "something wasn't right," with her mum in that period. At the time she put it down to possible arthritis her mother was developing that was disconcerting her.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13578032.innocent-time-clear-name---peter-herons-letter-durham-police-chief/

[PH version of afternoon timeline] 

I had lunch with Ann at 1pm and returned to the office at 2pm. At about 3pm I received a telephone call from a client, Cleveland Bridge, who asked me to attend his office to discuss a contract my company was tendering for. As requested by him, I left the office shortly after 3pm and made the short journey to Cleveland Bridge and was in front of the client and two of his colleagues by about 3.15pm. I left the meeting at about 4.30pm and returned to the office via Croft and through Middleton St George village arriving back in the office at 5pm, returning home at 6pm to find Ann dead on our living room floor. Each and every step of my movements as I’ve described are corroborated by witness statements in Durham Constabulary’s own prosecution bundle of ‘evidence’ presented to my solicitor.

Police focused on a single statement by a former employee of mine who reported that he saw me driving my white Mercedes car erratically at high speed around a roundabout at 3.15pm. This alleged sighting was at the exact same time that I was sat in front of three members of Cleveland Bridge, whose completed statements testify to this fact.

One highly respected local businessman, an associate, refused to sign his statement and, as he revealed on the BBC’s Inside Out programme, was so perturbed that he immediately summoned his solicitor to his office, refusing point blank to sign it until it was amended to reflect the actual discussion that had taken place. 

[reported elsewhere as being Paul Stiller - see below]

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https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/durham-polices-only-unsolved-murder-9794417

Ann Marie, a mum-of-two and medical secretary, last saw her mum alive two weeks before the murder when she came to visit her with Peter, and they went for lunch at Largs, on the Ayrshire coast.

She had intended to travel down to see her mum from her home near Glasgow on the day she died. If she had left as planned, she would have arrived around the time of the murder.

As it was, she heard her partner discussing her mother on the phone, and knew it was bad news. Breaking down in tears, she recalled: “I knew there was a problem and he said something about mum and I thought ‘Oh my God has she got cancer?’

“The last time we had seen her she had a wrist injury.

“She had a metal splint on her hand and they were checking to see what was wrong with it, they thought it was arthritis or something. I knew it was bad news, but I did not know what it was.

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https://thetruecrimeenthusiast.co.uk/the-beauty-in-the-bikini-murder

Case summary

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/18603116.michael-benson-murder-darlington-mum-ann-heron/

Indeed, on the afternoon of the murder, Mr Heron had left the depot at 3.45pm in his white Mercedes, driven past the house to attend a meeting at Cleveland Bridge at 4pm before returning to the depot at 4.50pm.

However, the tone of the investigation changed when it emerged that Mr Heron had been having a short affair with a barmaid at the Dinsdale Spa golf club – and returned to the depot via the club in the vague hope of spotting her walking her dog.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2040737.everything-normal-day-apart-ended/

"She was seen by a friend on a passing bus at about two o'clock and another friend telephoned her a bit later.

She always fed Heidi, her dog, at five o'clock, but on that day she didn't."

"Then he realised something horrible was wrong. He bent down and touched her and there was blood on his fingertips. He ran to the phone and dialled 999 and then called Paul Stiller. The depot is only a few minutes away and Paul and a colleague got there before the police. Dad was slumped against his car. He asked Paul to go in. Tell me I'm wrong,' he said, but Paul went in and came out and said I'm sorry...'.

The police officer who led the case later remembered his first steps through the same front door: the immaculate home, the ticking clocks, the illuminated electric fire, the body lying facedown in a pool of blood in the otherwise perfectly tidy room.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2043009.affair-doesnt-mean-father-guilty-murder/

"In the early days of the investigation, he was asked to join an identity parade for a guy who had reported seeing a white car which he thought was about to turn into the driveway of Aeolian," says Mrs Simpson.

"Dad went down to the police station as requested in his black tie - he wore black for quite while after.

"By this time he had appeared on television and also in the media. The policeman said to the witness, 'Is the suspect in the line-up?' 

"The guy walked up and down and said it's number ten. Dad was number one in the line. The police officer said at least twice 'are you sure?'.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2047286.the-gazelle-fighting-life-felt-like/

At a quarter to nine, my sister, Beverley, phoned and said they had arrested somebody for Ann, someone from Motherwell.

After a week in prison, Mr Heron was bailed to stay with Mrs Simpson and her husband at their home in Hutton Rudby, near Yarm, on one condition: he was to have no contact with Beverley.

"After the meeting, instead of returning to the depot via the shortest route, which would have taken him past Aeolian House, he travelled through Neasham and Middleton St George in the hope of perhaps seeing his girlfriend, who would usually be walking her dog at that time," says Mrs Simpson. 

"He did not see her and, as witnesses agree, he arrived back at the depot at about 4.50pm. His colleague, Paul Stiller, had just taken delivery of a new car and they went together to see it.

"The police theory has him leaving Cleveland Bridge, driving to Aeolian House, committing the crime, cleaning himself and changing his clothes; getting rid of the weapon and returning to the depot for 4.50pm as if nothing had happened.

"The forensic report says that a high percentage of the fibres on Ann's body were denim, which indicated that the guy who did it was wearing jeans, but they couldn't rule out the possibility that she had worn a denim skirt that day," says Mrs Simpson.

"That doesn't sound like Ann, as she usually wore pastel cotton skirts, and it certainly doesn't sound like Dad as he has never owned a pair of jeans in his life - he is of the old school and wears slacks even to this day.

"There was also a tiny spot of DNA found on Ann. It was too small to identify using techniques at the time and they had to grow it before they could get anything from it - it was the one chance to solve the case."

By 2005, developments in DNA testing meant the fragment could be analysed, and the results led to the arrest.

"It turned out to be dad's and it came from the carpet that Ann had fallen onto," says Mrs Simpson.

"The same DNA was found in 36 other places on the carpet.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2049826.crucial-evidence-believe-will-lead-us-anns-killer/

The primary line of inquiry should have revolved around two independent sightings, by a total of five witnesses, of a blue car, which they saw travelling at excessive speed down the driveway of Aeolian House - between Middleton St George and Darlington - where Ann and Peter lived - at 5.05pm on August 3, 1990.

[Presumably four in the Liz Lamb car + lone taxi driver]

They said the car was like a Ford Sierra or an Austin Montego.

An article in The Northern Echo in 2004, by one of those witnesses, highlighted this sighting in detail.

I have repeatedly asked Durham Police the following questions, without reply:

* Why have these witnesses never been re-interviewed? One was a taxi-driver. The others were a family of three plus a friend returning from a day at the beach.

Early in the investigation, two detective constables - Tim Lerner and Jim Loughran - told Mr Heron at Dinsdale Spa Golf Club the identity of a local man whom they believed had carried out the crime.

However, the following day, a more senior officer, by the name of Harris, visited Mr Heron and withdrew the name. Why?

In one case, this comprised a chat between a witness and two detectives. The police returned later with a statement which they asked the witness to sign.

The content of this statement so concerned the witness that legal advice was sought and another formal statement was provided in the presence of a solicitor. This final statement bore no resemblance whatsoever to the one the detectives had written out to be signed.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2068000.i-last-person-see-ann-alive/

As he neared Aeolian House, the scene of the murder, he noticed a car coming towards him.

He believes Mrs Heron was driving the vehicle, which was indicating to turn in to the house.

"As we passed, I said to my mate Ann must have friends or relatives down from Scotland for the weekend' because there were people in the car - one in the passenger seat with his hands on the dashboard, and the other in the back seat," said the witness, who was driving an HGV.

"We were 12ft up in the air in the cab, looking down, and on the parcel shelf was a distinctive object."

The witness, who gave a statement to the police in 1990, believes the object was a "trademark"

carried by a man well known in Darlington's nightclub scene.

That driver has never been traced - although the witness says he also saw the blue car parked in a lay-by outside the house.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/8306146.just-want-justice-ann-dad/

It concludes with a line indicating her belief that the killer was known to the family and may possibly once have been close enough to call “friend”.

The family have always believed that Ann knew her killer.

Only someone close to the family, who knew her movements and those of her husband, would have known that she was alone at the time of the murder.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13525437.it-normal-working-day-went-home-found-wife-dead-living-room-floor/

Later he tells of touching Ann as she lay dead. The blood from his hands was left on the phone as he first called 999 and then his work colleague and good friend, Paul Stiller, who worked nearby.

The blood was also found on the roof of his white Mercedes where he went outside and leaned for support sobbing and waiting for his friend, and the police, to arrive.

Debbie Simpson, 53, his daughter from a previous marriage, points out that nothing was disturbed, nothing was taken and there was no forced entry. This was no burglary gone wrong.

Aeolian House was just a few minutes’ drive from Mr Heron’s work and, as was typical, he popped home for a cup of soup and a sandwich.

Ann, meanwhile, went back to sunbathing. She had moved her sunbed to the front of the house to escape dust kicked up by a farmer harvesting a neighbouring field. That meant she could be seen, lying in her bikini, from tall vehicles on the nearby road. The house was not especially secluded but was separate from other properties – easy to spot and easy to attack. Just a week before a prowler had walked up the 50 yard driveway, frightening Ann into the home.

In fact Mrs Simpson, who, heading home from Whitby, had passed Aeolian house just five or ten minutes before her father returned home and, if her then-small children, Gary and Andrew, had not been sleeping would have called in.

Was Ann was having an affair? It would explain a man seemingly able the house with no struggle who did not burgle the house. There’s a clear ‘no’ from Mrs Simpson who nevertheless is firm in her belief that Ann must have known the man who attacked her. Her father stays silent on the issue.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13527116.peter-heron-police-banged-door-accuse-murder---life-destroyed-yet-again/

As will be outlined elsewhere, he queries the re-interviewing of several witnesses, not least that of his business associate, Paul Stiller, who is on the record of refusing to sign his 2005 witness statement saying he “didn’t recognise 40 to 50 per cent of it”.

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19249459.cold-case-review-plea-historic-murder/

Regrettably a man came forward in all innocence, to help merely as a witness. He was treated as a suspect immediately.

The guy was parked up in a lay by nearby on the day of the murder waiting to meet with his longterm partner. The police just couldn't leave him alone.

[from comments below article - username NigeBoddyprivatecitizen]

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19486274.ann-heron-murder-police-reject-complaint-handling-case/

NigeBoddyprivatecitizen 8th August 2021 5:07 pm User ID: 880705

Durham Constabulary made an appeal for witnesses by asking anyone who d been in the area to come forward. A man came forward voluntarily wishing merely to be helpful. The local police detectives then became fixed on the idea that the man who came forward in response to their appeal was responsible for the murder. …

They wasted so much time on the idea, that the man who'd come forward was responsible, (interviewing him and then interviewing him again) they allowed the other lines of enquiry to dwindle to nothing. 

[comment below article]

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https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/20101444.channel-5s-ann-heron-murder-documentary-will-air-tv/

NigeBoddyprivatecitizen 30th April 6:29 am User ID: 880705

…

(1) Did anyone in CID ever look into the airport fire school connections the deceased might have had? No.

(2) Did anyone ever investigate why she'd ( really) moved from Scotland to here in the first place and what she was leaving behind in Scotland? No.

[comment below article]

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https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/ann-heron-murder-look-back-22142320

The 44-year-old had been enjoying the sunshine in the garden and had planned to attend a party that evening.

Speaking on GMTV in 1995, Mr Heron gave his own view on the killing.

He said: "I don't believe that whoever killed Ann was somebody who goes about doing horrible things like this. I believe it was an ordinary guy who, for whatever reason, had to kill Ann.”

The case featured on BBC's Crimewatch in October 1990 with viewers being told a blue car had also been seen outside the house by another witness at about 4.45pm.

Chevaline: the reconstruction

In September 2021 the incoming Annecy Procureure, Line Bonnet Mathis ordered a new reconstruction of the Chevaline murders, with the aim of better understanding the timeline of events on 5th September 2012. Based on computer modelling of these events this is what was discovered, why it led to the arrest of a Lyon businessman in January 2022 and where the inquiry goes from here:

Chevaline timeline model video as of January 14th 2022

Also at https://youtu.be/y6v_a4Rq0N0

1. There was no mystery grey UK registered BMW X5 on the Combe d’Ire that day - it was a misidentification of Saad Al Hilli’s maroon estate car by the ONF ranger who passed it. Various theories had been put forward previously to support this possibility - modelling established that the X5 was seen at the exactly the point on the Combe d’Ire where Saad’s estate would have been at the time. A green “4x4 type vehicle” seen by William Brett Martin was similarly identified as being an ONF ranger’s work van early in the inquiry.
   
   
2. The order of the sightings of a motorcyclist by the ONF rangers was back to front. It was previously believed that a motorcyclist was seen arriving at the Place du Martinet by one of the rangers and then again later by two other rangers further up the track. In reality the sighting higher up came first and significantly earlier, such that the ONF rangers had escorted the motorcyclist (later identified as a Lyon businessman) down and off the Combe d’Ire before any of the other protagonists arrived at the bottom. With this established, previous confusion around the timeline disappeared. However…
   
   
3. Despite having apparently left the Combe d’Ire before 3.10pm, the Lyon motorcyclist was not seen leaving the area by CCTV cameras in nearby Doussard until some time later. Thus, the French investigators considered the possibility that after initially leaving the Combe d’Ire he doubled back up the Old (CR dit Ancien de la) Combe d’Yre forest track and then joined the Combe d’Ire, arriving at the Place du Martinet at around 3.30pm before carrying out the attack and returning by the same route (otherwise the timings indicate he would have been seen by William Brett Martin on the way up the Combe d’Ire and Philippe B on the way down). As a result, the motorcyclist was arrested in January 2022. But…
   
   
4. When this motorcyclist was first seen by the ONF rangers above the Place du Martinet, he was described as wearing a black, open face helmet. The motorcyclist seen arriving later at the Place du Martinet by the other ONF ranger and then by British cyclist William Brett Martin was described as wearing a white, full face helmet. So if it was the Lyon motorcyclist who had doubled back, he also changed his helmet on the way back up and (presumably) again on the way back down for the second time before being seen by CCTV cameras in Doussard. In a similar vein, earlier in the investigation some effort was put into tracing examples of a model of helmet with a retractable chin bar (ISR GPA) in an apparent attempt to reconcile the open face/full face helmet sightings, though this would not have accounted for the change in colour. While a change of helmet would explain the colour difference and would not be impossible if he had a top box on the bike big enough to contain a spare, after two days of questioning and police searches of his home the Lyon motorcyclist was released without charge. So…
   
   
5. With the Lyon motorcyclist eliminated, another possibility remains: that the motorcyclist seen at the Place du Martinet was not the Lyon motorcyclist seen earlier further up the track. As with the ‘double back’ scenario above, timings indicate that this motorcyclist arrives at the Place du Martinet via the Old Combe d’Yre track, carries out the attack and then returns the same way (but wearing a white, full face helmet throughout). Forest trails leading off the Old Combe d’Yre stretch as far east as Faverges and Giez, but the nearest village is Arnand to the north, through which it is known that both the Al Hillis and Sylvain Mollier had passed prior to the attack. If Arnand was the place from which this motorcyclist came, timings suggest he would have left there at around the same time the Al Hillis, ten minutes after Sylvain Mollier passed through the village on his bike. Unfortunately, if this motorcyclist was a local (as knowledge of the forest trails might suggest) coming from and returning to a nearby village via the forest it is unlikely that he would have passed other witnesses or CCTV cameras along the way. Thus, while a second motorcyclist may become the focus of the inquiry in the future, in the absence of any new evidence he is likely to prove difficult to identify.

The Méchinaud Case. Part 3: Theories and Rumours

In the first two parts I touched on some of the theories surrounding the disappearance of the Méchinaud family as they drove from Cognac to their home in the village of Boutiers-Saint-Trojan in the early hours of Christmas morning in 1972 and followed the events of the initial 1973 inquiry and the new searches in 2011. In this last part I will look more closely at some of the competing theories and the rumours which have surrounded the case in the past 46 years.


Accident

An obvious initial contender given the weather conditions on the night of the disappearance. A freezing fog blanketed the town of Cognac and would have been at its thickest as the family crossed the two bridges over the Charente. But, as a result Jacques would have been obliged to drive slowly on the homeward journey and, short of going off one of the bridges into the river (with consequent obvious damage to the parapet) it's unlikely that the car could have remained hidden for 46 years and following at least two intensive searches along the length of the route in 1973 and 2011.


Collective suicide (or murder-suicide)

In the wake of claims that Pierrette had a lover and based on Jacques' alleged comment in May 1972 that he would "make everyone disappear," this became the favoured hypothesis of the first inquiry. It was said that Jacques Méchinaud knew the various quarries and caves of the region well - not least the abandoned underground quarry workings at St-Même-les-Carrières, his wife's former home town. But opinions vary - some say that it would have been impossible to drive a small Simca 1100 into a quarry, others claim that had Jacques managed it, especially in the serpentine St-Même caverns, there would have been little chance of finding or recovering the vehicle or its occupants.

And that is assuming that all in the car went willingly to their deaths. The thick fog would have made for slow driving, giving Pierrette at least some chance to escape the vehicle if she realised she was being driven into danger. In respect of this, there were some suggestions that Jacques had deliberately delayed the family's departure from the Fontanillas' house and had spent an unusually long time warming up the car - possibly in the hope of encouraging his passengers to fall asleep quickly. To what extent this might be true is unknown - the Fontanillas are on record saying that the Méchinauds left at 1am, not an unusually late time following a midnight 'reveillon' meal, though several press reports state that the departure was as late as 2.30am

Perhaps worth noting that in all of the variations of the suicide and flight theories (below) it was generally assumed that the family never returned to their house in Boutiers after leaving the Fontanillas in Cognac, based on the discovery of food in the fridge and presents still wrapped under the Christmas tree. Denise Grall however, in addition to stating that she considered Jacques to have a jealous personality and claiming tensions between him and Pierrette's family, went as far as to suggest that the scene discovered by gendarmes when they entered the house may have been carefully staged at some point after the supposed disappearance.


Flight to a new life - Australia, Spain, the Vendée?

According to Ismaël Karroum writing in 2010 for the Charente Libre newspaper the Méchinaud bank account had been emptied of everything except enough to cover the rent on the house (for how long he doesn't say). Additionally Karroum cites relatives as saying that Jacques had close to 50,000 Francs, the proceeds of his cash-in-hand car repair work. None of this money has ever been traced. If the claim regarding the bank account is true (and it should be noted that Karroum appears to be alone in reporting this) then clearly there is a suggestion of premeditation and planning.

So did the whole family simply take off for a new life elsewhere, using the advantage of the Christmas break from school and work to get a head-start on anyone looking for them? Pierrette's alleged lover Maurice Blanchon variously suggested that they had fled to Australia or Chalon-sur-Saône. According to a relative of Pierrette, in the 1980s a baptism certificate was requested for one of the boys from an address in Pouzauges in the Vendée region - another area mentioned by Blanchon as a place visited by Jacques only days before the family's disappearance. 

Others suggested Spain and some even claimed that the family had not gone far at all; their car apparently being seen between Angoulême and Cognac in the year after the disappearance and Jacques' wallet found in the village square in Boutiers. Sufficient to say, none of this was ever confirmed and even if the bank account was emptied, it does not necessarily indicate that the whole family was party to any escape plan.


Crime (third party)

While the criminal theories in this case tend to centre on Jacques Méchinaud as a potential perpetrator, other possibilities have been considered in varying degrees. An unfortunate encounter on the road between Cognac and Boutiers? A settling of accounts, possibly in relation to his car repair work? Was he fixing up and/or 'ringing' stolen cars? No evidence was found, though such a possibility does bring the 'wrong' Simca 1100 found near the Pont de Basseau to mind.

In Boutiers Maurice Blanchon was questioned by the gendarmes. According to him "they questioned me, but they weren't too bothered. As they said to me at the time, if they suspected everyone who was in and out of the neighbours..." Certainly it seems that little effort was made to verify Blanchon's various claims about the family and events prior to their disappearance.

In April 2003, in the wake of a TV documentary on the case an anonymous letter writer contacted the then mayor of Boutiers, who had appeared in the film. In two letters, the author described a murder, stating "it happened at 3am ... it's time the little ones were laid to rest properly." The author wrote of an altercation and gave the names of those allegedly involved, though the details were hazy. But in addition he or she also named an address and a specific location within the property where the bodies of the family were hidden. This may have been the abandoned house and grounds on Rue de Port Boutiers searched intensively in 2011, though the basement of one other property is believed to have also been scanned with ground penetrating radar at around the same time, with no result reported at either location.


Resources

For those wanting to know more, a few of the resources used in compiling these blog posts:

From Philippe Dumas' Boutiers-St-Trojan blog, a fairly comprehensive compilation of press articles from 1972-2014:

http://philippe.dumas.pagesperso-orange.fr/actua2.htm

Ismaël Karroum's 2010 piece for Charente Libre, listing many of the additional claims and rumours detailed in part 3 in particular:

http://relaischux.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net/PagesCL/pdf/disparusboutiers.pdf

Jean Berthelot de la Glétais' 2017 investigation for 'Sang-Froid' magazine, including a rare interview with Maurice Blanchon:

https://jeanberthelot.com/2017/06/01/disparus-de-boutiers-le-deuil-impossible

Jacques Pradel's "L'Heure du Crime" on RTL radio:

https://www.rtl.fr/actu/debats-societe/l-affaire-des-disparus-de-boutiers-7782803802

https://www.rtl.fr/actu/debats-societe/les-disparus-de-boutiers-7789076944

A very atmospheric news report from April 1973, featuring scenes of Boutiers house and interviews with the Fontanillas and gendarmes in charge of the case at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=706hhM7PY7M

The route from the Fontanilla's house in Rue de la Plante to the Méchinaud house 14 Rue St Trojan, Boutiers:

As seen on Google Maps

And as ever a Google search will bring up plenty more articles:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mechinaud+Boutiers+disparus+Noel&oq=Mechinaud+Boutiers+disparus+Noel

The Méchinaud Case. Part 2: A New Inquiry

Fast forward to 2011: Jean-Paul Méchinaud contacts the chief prosecutor in Angouleme to inform him of a problem. The family want to sell a piece of inherited land, but with Jacques still missing and never having been officially declared dead the sale cannot proceed. Jean-Paul is surprised by the response he receives - in addition to allowing the sale to proceed, prosecutor Nicolas Jacquet also proposes re-opening the inquiry into the 1972 disappearance, including new searches using the latest technologies available to the gendarmerie.

Search at 45 Rue de Port Boutiers in 2011

And so, in November 2011 the river beds and ponds were again swept, this time by sonar and underwater metal detectors. An abandoned property on the north bank of the Charente in Port Boutiers was also searched and ground penetrating radar used to scan for any sign of human remains - with the new searches coming only months after France was gripped by the Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès case, the possibility that Jacques had murdered his family before fleeing was prominent in the public imagination, though this location may also have been suggested by an anonymous letter sent to the mayor of Boutiers in 2003.

Abandoned and partially flooded underground quarry workings in the nearby town of St-Même-les-Carrières, where Pierrette Méchinaud grew up were also searched by divers, but to no avail. Some cars and large boats were recovered from the river - notably a local man was reunited with his stolen Porsche, but otherwise the searches new revealed nothing. 

Sonar scan of the Charente in 2011

Inevitably, as in 1973 after some time search activity decreased. But the 2011 operation was not entirely without success, albeit indirectly; as a result of renewed media interest in the case a new witness appeared. Denise Grall, a resident of La Couronne near Angoulême contacted Jean-Paul Méchinaud offering to pass on photos of Jacques and Pierrette taken when they holidayed together at a leisure resort in Brillac, near Confolens. After first meeting there in 1966 as a result of their children playing together, the couples regularly met up again in the years up to 1972. 

According to Denise, the last contact she had with Jacques and Pierrette was a card from them shortly before Christmas 1972, inviting her and her husband to visit Boutiers to swap holiday photos. But in the 39 years since their disappearance she had not come forward nor, surprisingly, had she apparently been sought out by the inquiry. And it is through Denise Grall that we come to a curious development which at the time appeared to promise a breakthrough.

Pierrette Méchinaud, Denise Grall and Jacques Méchinaud

After the 2011 searches were concluded, there continued to be occasional flurries of activity relating to chance discoveries: in 2012 human bones of what appeared to be a man and a child were found in woods 20km north of Boutiers by a mushroom hunter - but DNA tests showed no match to Jacques Mechinaud's siblings. In 2014 several skeletons were unearthed in a garden in Cognac; tests showed them to date from at least ninety years earlier.

But in October 2013 a maroon Simca 1100 matching that in which the Méchinauds disappeared was pulled out of the Charente near the Pont de Basseau to the west of Angoulême - 50km from the Méchinaud house in Boutiers, but less than 2km from where the Grall family were living in Saint Michel in 1972. Had Jacques Méchinaud, or perhaps the whole family been sheltered by the Gralls, dumping the car in the river before fleeing onward? Such questions were short-lived - when the registration and chassis number of the recovered Simca were checked, they were found not to match the Méchinauds' car. Another dead end.

Pont de Basseau, Angoulême

And this remains the situation after nearly 46 years. Officially the inquiry remains open under the name 'Operation Bruneri' (a contraction of the names of the two boys) and an email address is maintained in the hope that members of the public might still provide some new information. It is said that debate is still ongoing locally as to whether the family died on the night they went missing or fled to a new life abroad, but there is also a sense that possible indicators either way were not followed up by the initial inquiry: Denise Grall was not sought out; Maurice Blanchon claimed that Jacques was obsessed with Australia and pestered a colleague who had lived there with questions about the country - the colleague was never identified. Similarly, Blanchon claimed that Jacques made a trip to visit a friend in the Vendée on 18th December 1972, days before the family's disappearance. Again it appears that this was not followed up.

And so the mystery remains intact. At this stage it would seem that any breakthrough is most likely to come through a new chance discovery: human remains or the maroon Simca 1100 (reg 544 JV 16) found rusting under a dustsheet in a barn. But that said, as has been seen already in this case and others, it's not entirely unknown for new witnesses to come forward after decades of silence. If by any chance you are that witness, you can still contact the inquiry by email at bta.cognac@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr including the term "Bruneri 47" in the subject line.

In part 3, a closer look at some of the theories and the rumours which surround the case.

The Méchinaud Case. Part 1: Disappearance

On the afternoon of Sunday 24th December 1972 Jacques Méchinaud aged 31, his 29 year-old wife Pierrette and their two young sons Eric (7) and Bruno (4) drove the short distance from their home in the village of Boutiers-Saint-Trojan to the town of Cognac, where they spent the afternoon and evening with friends preparing for a 'reveillon' - a midnight meal to celebrate the start of Christmas. The previous day they had been out shopping for toys and food with the two boys; an apparently normal family enjoying their Christmas holiday.

Pierrette and Jacques Méchinaud with their sons Eric and Bruno

At the time, the Méchinaud family had lived in the village of Boutiers for around two and a half years. Jacques grew up in Bourg-Charente, his wife Pierrette (née Esnard) was originally from Saint-Même-les-Carrières. Described at the time as a hard worker, Jacques was employed by the large Saint Gobain glass factory in Chateaubernard, on the outskirts of Cognac. In addition to his shifts there, he was also known to do some part-time work locally repairing cars. Pierrette looked after the house and children.

According to their friends in Cognac, the Fontanillas, it was a relaxed evening with little out of the ordinary. At around 1am Jacques warmed up the family's maroon Simca 1100 ready for the short journey home - less than 4km door to door. Normally this would have been a ten minute drive through Cognac, over the Charente and into the village of Boutiers, just to the north of the river. But this was not a normal night; a thick fog had settled over the town, with visibility reported at the time as being 3-5 metres at best. Once ready, Pierrette and the two boys climbed aboard and the car disappeared into the night. Neither it, nor the family were ever seen again.

The Fontanillas in 1973

There's some confusion over who exactly first alerted the local gendarmerie to the family's disappearance - some say that it was Pierrette's father on 6th January, others that Jacques' parents, who had expected the family for a Christmas meal, reported it before that but were obliged to wait before any investigation could start, on the basis that adults had a right to disappear. Either way, it was not until a week into the new year that the gendarmes finally entered the Méchinaud house at 14 Rue St Trojan in Boutiers. When they did, they discovered the children's presents still wrapped under the Christmas tree, a turkey and oysters in the fridge and no obvious sign of any missing clothing or documents which might suggest the family had returned to the house after leaving Cognac in the early hours of 25th December.

From January 10th the search for the family was stepped up - a helicopter was deployed for aerial searches and divers combed the beds of the Charente and surrounding ponds and creeks. But in the cold and murky water it was slow going. The banks of the river were checked on foot for any sign of a vehicle or tyre tracks which could indicate that a car had gone into the water, but nothing was found. As time passed the search was scaled back and, as the gendarmes withdrew, the dowsers and mediums moved in with (unsurprisingly) an equal lack of success.

The Méchinaud house - Rue St Trojan in Boutiers

But while nothing was found to indicate the whereabouts of the family, new claims began to emerge about the background to their disappearance - specifically that Pierrette, apparently bored with domestic rural life had taken a lover in the village of Boutiers and that Jacques had recently found out. How recently is, again, a matter of confusion. 

According to some sources he had told his brother Jean Paul and a work colleague as far back as May 1972 that things were not going well with his wife and that if she left him he would "make everyone disappear." But it's difficult to know whether this apparent threat was actually made by Jacques, or whether it's something that has grown in the telling; interviewed in 2011 Jean-Paul quoted his brother only as saying "if it doesn't work out I will leave and you will never find me." 

Other sources indicate that while Jacques may have had suspicions about his wife for some time, he only found out for certain about the alleged affair two days before the family's disappearance, having been tipped off by a neighbour of her supposed lover. The man in question has claimed that Pierrette visited him on the 22nd December, bearing marks of strangulation and a black eye - injuries which he says she told him were the result of being attacked by Jacques. He further claimed that she told him at the time of her intention to leave Jacques for him immediately after Christmas.

Maroon Simca 1100 of the type owned by the Méchinauds

In the light of these claims, perception of the circumstances surrounding the family's disappearance began to shift away from an accident or an unlucky encounter on the road that night, towards theories of murder/suicide or, more charitably, a flight by the family to start a new life in some far-off town. But it is hard to see how these claims of imminent separation and violent rage tally with reports that the family had happily shopped together on the 23rd December. Also the Fontanillas reported that, if Jacques may have seemed a little more stressed than usual on the 24th the evening was otherwise relaxed and unremarkable. Neither did they mention that Pierrette appeared to bear any visible injury.

And that remains pretty much all that is known of events at the time in a case that is both unremarkable; thousands disappear every year with no trace, but at the same time unusual in that an entire family vanished together leaving not a single piece of evidence or suggestion as to what might have happened to them. Additionally, the few 'known' facts of the case are based almost entirely on the uncorroborated accounts of a few witnesses - the Fontanillas, Jacques' brother Jean-Paul and Pierrette's supposed lover Maurice Blanchon. 

Suicide? Murder? Escape to a new life? In part 2, a look at the events around the re-opening of the inquiry in 2011 and subsequent discoveries.