Thinking Sideways: The Annecy Shootings

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You can go to stitcher dot com slash Thinking sideways and use the code sideways for one month free. So stitcher dot com slash Thinking sideways, use the sideways and uh yeah, you know you want to so get on it. Hi There Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Joe, joined as always by and and of course we're going to talk about a mystery. Yeah, okay, So this week we're going to talk about a little mass

murder that happened about five years ago in France. This has been in the news actually quite a bit, so you may have heard of. It happened September in the French Alps, several miles south of Lake Annessee, which I'm probably mispronouncing. Oh yeah, now it's time for the the warning. Uh, this contains a lot of French words which I'm gonna be mispronounced. That's we did our best, but it's yeah, it's hard to make it stick, is wed? Yeah, yeah

it is. Yeah. The listener discretion is advised. Okay, Yeah, that's all. That's all. Yeah, I don't don't that's my French right there. Yeah, okay, back to Lake Annessey. So, um, Lake Annessey. Is this really beautiful lake. I don't know if you guys took a look at it on Google or like that really really beautiful place and in the Alps and about forty miles not not even forty miles, twenty miles south of Geneva, Switzerland, way over the east

of France. Of course, the mystery I'm talking about, of course, is the Annecy shootings. Also knows the Chevaline killings, because that's the little village that it was kind of close to. Before you go any further, I want to give a hat tip to a few of our listeners who suggested this topic, actually Annie and some others. I know a lot of people have suggested this to us, but when I looked on the list, I only saw Anny's name on it, So all the rest of you, hey, thanks.

So this is a popular one and I've been following the story for a while now, and it recently is popped up back in the news because they have a new suspect. I don't know if you guys noticed that or not, but it's I'm still looking to be like, they're not going to solve it anytime soon, I don't think, which is why we're confidently doing an episode on it. Yeah. I think so very excited for it to be solved a week before we released YEA, that wouldn't that be? Yeah,

I would be a great track record. Every week we go to put one out and they solve it. The week. You know what I was gonna say, genuinely, I really would though, because that would just mean, you know, so much less pain in this world for people. So that's true. It would be a good thing and just be more pain for us but less for other people. Okay whatever. Oh, let's talk about our protagonists in this story. They would be the al Hilly family who lived in Claygate, which

is in England. It's west of Croydon, northwest of Epsom, so you know exactly where it is, right south of Squickenham and north of East Horsley, about fifty kilometers southwest of London. Yeah. The al Hilly family was Sad hal Hilly fifty years old born in Iraq that I think. I believe his family moved to England when he was about nine years old. I think he might have been slightly younger than that, but it was somewhere he was he was a young boy. Yeah, he was very young

and along with his brother's aid and his dad. Kadim Sad is our first protagonist in Ikball forty seven. His wife, who was a dentist side by the way, it was an engineer. So Hala Alaf seventy four was was Ball's mother. On the b Sad's mother in law, and then their two daughters, Zeneb and Zena, who were seven and four respectively. Yes. Also president of our crime scene was Sylvan more Molier, forty five years old, a French guy, a little a little background here on the al hillis and and Molier.

Sad was born in her acts I said, his family moved to England. His brothers Zaid, still lives in London. Sad, as I said, was an engineer who quote worked on satellite systems. It's a little vague exactly what he did, but apparently he worked for Seri Satellite Technology Ltd. And as employers said that his work did not involved classified stuff, so it's not like he was working on super secret spots. The satellite industry is like a lot of industries. It's

pretty broad. It could be weather satellite, it could be the guy worked for a satellite TV company, and you know, I think he was a little more higher up than that, but I think that, yeah, yeah, so and then and the Ball. His wife was a dentist who I believe but I can't swear on this, was educated in Dubai and she'd been married before to an American and James Thompson from Mississippi. According to accounts that I've read, she married the guy just to get her green card. It

was kind of a marriage of convenience. I don't think it was even consummated. Things didn't work out, unfortunately for in America, because her credentials didn't qualify her to work as an actual dentist, and she had to be a dental assistant, which she found kind of you know the meaning, I guess, or at least low paying. Yeah. It's like the doctor that you meet from another country who's driving cabs in this country because we don't recognize the all

the schooling he did in his home country. It's pretty sad, kind of a waste really. As I said, things didn't work out eventually, I while moved back to Dubai later married. So did they meet in Dubai. I'm not sure exactly. Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, and then we'll talk about the of course, the two met in England. Yeah, it might be. I remember reading about where they met, and I really feel like they met in England. But I could told me very well, be true, as that's that's

one aspect of the story. I didn't actually research too heavily. I read it in passing and I thought okay, and then it's of course immediately escaped me. And this has actually been much covered in the press and a lot of contradictory accounts. So yeah, yeah, probably depends on how

they want to frame the story. Yeah. And then also our French guy, Sylvan Mola, I'm probably mispronouncing that, but he worked at a company called Cesar, which refines and cast various exotic metals into billets and such for machining into nuclear reactor parts. U But he was a welder. Well yeah, Initially in the press though he was he was put it was he was supposed to be like a metallurgist or maybe a senior production manager, and eventually

came out the because those are juicy positions to write about. Yeah, well there juicy because maybe he had nuclear secrets that's why he got murdered, you know. But it turns out he was a welder, which, by the way, that's not that's not necessarily a low paying, low skilled that's high paying work, right, and highly skilled. But I knew a guy who used to go around the world and helped

construct nuclear reactors all over the world. He made gobs of money, but it's not really classified unlikely that you would encounter something in the course of your work that would make you a high value target. He was a welder and he turned big wrenches, which is just a very similar to this guy. Yeah, yeah, So anyway, he did seem to have money though, because he was riding a five thousand euro bike, so yeah, he was yeah, bicycle,

not motorcycle. So Molier had been married. He had two kids by his previous wife, but he had left her by the time of his death. He had a new girlfriend and they had just had a baby. Girlfriend's name was Claire Shutz, and I believe they were they've been together two years death, Yeah, about two years. Yeah, alright, so let's start our story. And as you can guess, there's gonna be some some killing here. Why we got

a yeah, why we've got ourselves a mystery? So, uh, I start at the beginning here September twelve, two thousand and twelve. The al Hilly family, we were kind of road tripping through France. They had they had come across the channel to Calais, France, and then we're driving across the country. They had like a BMW station wagon with the big trailer behind it, and then never and so they were camping at the south shore of Lake Annessey.

He said, his East France. Car camping, not really camping camping, Yeah, of course, I don't know. I mean, their trailer was not huge. So with five people in that trailer, maybe someone did pitch at tamp you still I think not that this matters at all, But I think even if you're in a tent that you just unpacked from your car, it's still car camping technically if you haven't hiked in, you know, you're one of those purest I forgot. Yeah,

sorry everyone, that's that's true. Yeah, but some people do consider, you know, going out in a trailer to be camping. It's not. Well, it's car camping. I don't Yeah, yeah, it's called a camper dude off. Yeah, nothing wrong with that. Whatever makes and whatever helps you access nature, Yeah, and go out and it's a great way to go out and see Europe or somewhat cheaper and with two young children,

it makes a lot of sense totally. So there, their trailer was parked to the campground at the south end of the lake. Lake. That's Lake Annessey, which is kind of a long, narrow north south lake and by the way, very pretty, as I've already said, but I'll say it again. Yeah, really nice. I really would like to go there. Uh. They got in their car that afternoon to drive around

do a little sight seeing. And this is important they left the trailer at the campsite because I initially did not pick that up, and the story later on became confusing. When I presume they were still towing, that would have made things even worse for them. Not that things Yeah, I don't know how much worse they could have gotten actually, come to think of it. They said they drove south

from the lake to the village of Dussard. When they talk about at least one picture, which is how we know they were there, they found at the time and date stamp on the photo when their in their camera police did That was three pm. And from there they continued south to the village of Sheveling and the main

roads through the village. You can see this on on the area as it goes south through the village and at the south end of town it goes past the farm and a big barn sort of heads up into the hills and it's very narrow and it's it's it's in the cleft of two mountain. Yeah, it's in a little valley and there's a there's a stream running alongside and everything, and it actually goes back and forth across

the stream, crosses a lot of bridges and stuff. Very beautiful, yeah, really nice and uh but it goes up for several kilometers into the hills before it dead ends. And as you say, it doesn't doesn't quite dead end, but it reaches a small parking area and past that point, motor vehicles are not allowed, so you would hike, get out

and take a little walk a little bit. I and I originally I thought what was is it reached actually kind of a turnaround, an actual dead end, and then from there they were like trails that you can hike on. But I don't know if you guys looked at it on street view saying the coordinates and and actually the road continues, it does. He's just not supposed to drive down it anymore, I believe. Didn't they don't they like kept logs in front of it or something like that

to keep drivers from going through. Uh not, No, not in the street view that I saw. Maybe they have sense sens Okay. I remember reading something about the fact that they were quote unquote trees in the way and they were like, yeah, we're not gonna do anything about that because we don't want you to drive there. Oh yeah, no, that was there was a big article written, I think it was in g Q one the guy wanted to

drive up there. Yeah, and that's where that's why I got the impression that those trees were down at after that turnaround. No, actually they were well before that. There was there was there were some trees down. And then then the guy goes back to town and some talks to some girl in the cafe and she says, yeah, nobody really goes up there, so you know, so we're not that motivated. But anyway, they're up that road along about three fift British tourist on a bicycle was heading

up that same road, heading south out of Chevlin. His name was Brett Martin, former former pilot with the Royal Air Force. Uh and yeah, yeah British. Yeah. He had a like a summer vacation home nearby and he was past also going south by a French cyclist named Silvan Molier, who will you recognize? I mentioned it before and he was on his very expensive racing bike as I mentioned.

Oh yeah, when you said it earlier, I thought you said five thousand year old and I was like, that sounds wrong, but maybe I'm just going to roll with it. Like euro was it cost five thousand euros? Very expensive? God would that would be totally cool, out of place, artific mystery for us. I was just gonnaycle. It's probably my fault. It's probably my core annuciation. But yeah, his

bike costs. His bicycle costs five thousand euros according to one story that I read, which is kind of a shame for for a mala, because if he had a heavier bike like my Trek seventy three hundred, which is a hybrid, he probably would have gotten up to the end of the road later and that might have worked out a little differently for him. That's called foreshadow. Yeah, so we need one of these, don't don't done? Yeah, I was just wondering why he was doing brand placements

so much. He apparently has a sponsorship. He's not telling you. Apparently make a little money on the side. Yeah, it's just how he's paying off the bike. You know that the Europeans are actually paying me to promote the euro which is not doing so well these days. Okay, but back to our story. The al Hilly family came along in their BMW station wagon. Shortly after that, they passed

Brett and Martin going up the hill. It's not actually totally clear who got to the end of the road first, if it was Malier or the al Hillies, but pretty close to the same time. And this was around three thirty pm. Uh And, as I said before, there's what they call it lay by, also a white spot essentially, and yeah, that's what it is. It's just a wide gravel spot where you can pull off and park your car.

Uh So I'd pulled his car into that white spot, nose into the bank ninety degrees to the road, which violates my number one rule about parking and hicky spots, which as you turned the car around right so you can make a quick getaway. He didn't do that. But actually it's on StreetView it looks like a really pleasant little spot. So you know, it's not the kind of

spot you'd really worry about getting fire terror arrival. Now, it's not that it doesn't look like that kind of place, really, So he parks side and Zena Zenab his seven year old daughter, get out of the car, and the sequence of events is a little uncertain. After this, it appears that they were close to Mala, so you know, it might be that they were just saying hi, nice day something like that to him. Uh and uh. And then apparently a crazy gunman with the Lugar Lugar pistol pops

into the scene and opens fire. It looks like zanneb and Molier were shot first, Yeah, and cyclists and the cyclist and the French cyclist and and then the crime scene was reconstructed using all kinds of things like shell case things and the blood on people's soles of their feet and various things. So they sort of established because it turns it turns into kind of a messy scene. Yeah, there were quite a few shots fired, a lot of Yeah, but even the police are not acent certain that they

have the actual sequence down. But are the best guests the best guess. The cyclist and the daughter gets shot, yeah, Maia, once dad went down. I'm not sure about Zanne. She got shot in the shoulder. Uh. And then so I grabbed her, dragged her towards the car. And this is again I've read three different versions of this. One was he just left her and ran for the car. Another one is he grabbed her and drags her back to the car and then and I think you found one

scene that said he actually actually got her into the car. Yeah. Yeah, as he got as side got into the driver's seat, he was shot in the lower back and he starts the car, slams it reverse, cracks the wheel the left and floors it. And you can see in the air there's some helicopter shots of the spot. You can see that the car did a nice tight little semi circle one eight until it slams into the bank. The rear end of the slams into the bank, and that's where

it stayed. And I'm not sure if it got stuck. According to one account that I read, when Brett Martin got to the scene, he said it was still in reverse and the wheels were still turning it. Well, I sent you that image. Yeah, I found it. I saw the image to where it is definitely dug in. It is totally dug in, and you can tell that there's all the dirt has been flung away from the tire. It looks as if it's just it would have been

free spinning at that point. Yeah. I mean he might have just sat there because he might have been passed out from shock or blood loss or just being It really doesn't matter if if you slam the ass end of your vehicle into an embankment enough to pick the tires up a little bit, and the groundunderneath is soft and you were pounding on the accelerator, you're gonna quickly dig a hole. And you could be completely conscious, and you're still going to be unable to move because you

got no traction because it's two wheel dry. Yeah, but if the wheels were still spinning one um, yes his name had shown up, that would be you know, if somebody passed out, if it's in gear at that point, they're still going to be spinning. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's what I heard. But then again I've heard I've also heard that it was in neutral and he that semicircle made the car also run over. Yeah, he ran over, it ran over the French cycle was ye. Poor guy.

He was having a rough day. Like I said, dude, next time trek. Alright, So our gunman steps to the front of the car and he shot side again. Side was shot four times, twice to the head, and then the ball in Sula the mother in law were also shot several times. Then it appears that our perpetrator walked over to Molier and shot him again. So in all, SidD I Ball, Shila and Molier were shot four, four,

three and five times respectively. You in the head each person, each one got two in the head, yeah, which is yeah, well it's it's a that's prompted some sterizing about it being a professional yet. Yeah. And Zanna of course was shot once in the shoulder. She wasn't quite dead, so there was something some trauma to her head, wasn't there. Yea. He smashed her over the head at least once with the butt of his gun pretty hard apparently, and we

broke the he broke the grip of the grip of yeah. Yeah, yeah, so that requires a pretty severe blow. Well, yeah, that's intriguing because if you look at a luger, and this was a luger, they you know, they've established that apparently on the piece of the grip that was broke off,

look at the luger. It's actually the grip is kind of up a little bit from the botto, from the butt, the butt of it, so not actually when hitting somebody, not even hitting the grip on anything anyway, Well, he could have it could have already been sort of aged and cracked and could pistol whip there. Yeah, just yeah, which is really traumatizing and horrible, but well it's not. Yeah, she had a traumatizing enough time without getting bashed in the head. Yeah, well with yeah, without any of that.

But wasn't there also another child? There was another child? Yeah, But anyway, the last thing about the grip sell off. Of course the police did pick those up later, and that's not allowed them to identify the gun as a Swiss made P zero six thirty two caliber luger. As I'm sure you're all familiar with what a luger is. They're color classic. Yeah, you see him in all the World War two movies. Yeah, he's the classic handgun of the German army. Yeah. And they're they're actually really cool.

They're they're weird, but the cool. They're as iconic as the PP seven, the p P seven isn't that what James Bond uses? How much I know about the guns? Gun Nut for Oh no, she just made that up. I was closed. Come on, we happen to know there actually is a piece seven pistol, that's what. It doesn't matter. Yeah, no, it doesn't matter. But you were asking if there was another kid. Yeah, at first we forgot about zena aged four,

who was in the back seat with her mother. And uh, you know, I don't know if her mom shoved her behind her legs or she just took it, took the initiative and did it herself. But she hid behind her mother's legs. Her mom was wearing a long skirt, so she hid there behind her mother and was not seen by the gunman. And she stayed there for a long time.

The police I showed up and they were actually going over the scene and and cataloging it and marking it all out and everything, And it was like eight hours before they finally got around to opening up the car to to look at the dead bodies inside. It was I had read that it wasn't until some forensic person was going to examine the body that suddenly they realized something else was going So I have I have questions about that eight hour number. And this is a tangent

and I'll make it quick. But the way it was written, I initially presumed, I think, like all of us did, that it was eight hours from the time the cops are rived. But I think it's from eight hours from the time that incident happened. I think it's about half an hour after the cops arrived. Okay, not not just kidding. The cops got there very fast, but you know, it's still probably at the scene within an hour or two of it. A guy at a bicycle has to pedal

back to town to report it. Oh yeah, probably it was downhill, so it should have been fairly quick. That was a pretty crappy road haul on your bicycle. But the point is it would have taken a while for the cops to get there, so in their defense a little bit, it wasn't as if they were instantly appearing. And and again also in their defense, you would assume that if anybody were alive, and when they hurt sirens, they would declare themselves. Yeah, I mean no, they probably

probably don't take into account that there's a four year old. Yeah, but they probably they want to don't want to trample all over the scene, so they send one guy over to look in the windows and make sure everybody's dead, and you know, he goes and looks, Yeah, they all look dead to me, and then he backs out and they processed the whole crime scene. That probably discouraged her

from revealing herself. She spoke English, she lived in Britain, and they were all talking in French, so she had no way to know that they were police officers talking about the scene. All she knows is probably some guy in yelling French came out of the woods. I know there's more French people, are more French voices. I'm not moving. Yes,

he probably still hates French people. Yeah the French food that you're right, But I just thinking now, And obviously I'm very sympathetic to this poor little girl like hiding and terror for all those hours. But also it's it's kind of amazing to think of this lab tech or whoever it was it opens a card or thinking that he or she is going to be looking at a dead body and all of a sudden it moves. That

must have given him a start. Huh. Yeah. But but anyway, enough of that, So okay, so so guns go blazing? How many? How many rounds? Because that's why. But yeah, I think, as far as I could tell, the best guests here is twenty one rounds. I've read in other places twenty five rounds. But I think it was a lot. That's a lot. Uh. Yeah, because the luger has an

eight round magazine. Uh. And so the killer must have had two extra magazines because twenty one rounds, right, And maybe he had say seven rounds in each bagh, or it might be out of eight rounds in each bag and he just didn't shoot him all. He didn't shoot I didn't shoot Zana for some reason. We don't know the reason why. Or maybe he was just out of AMMO and he smashed her over the head and left.

I mean, it's maybe all of his mags weren't full. Yeah, maybe he puts seven rounds in each bag, or maybe he put eight eight rounds and had shot a couple of bullets already doing something else nefarious. Yeah, I had. I'd kind of come to the same conclusion, is what Joe was just saying. Is it putting seven in the eight? Because if you've ever tried to load up, it's really stiff, like that last one. Yeah, and sometimes it's just not worth it. Yeah, it's like, screw it, it's seven of eight.

It's it's enough. I know how many I have, which would make sense with the one rounds having been expelled. Yeah, and then for what he's planning on doing, I assume he went out of the house that day intending to murder somebody with his luger. You know, it's like packing a lot of reason. A luger is not alger and two extra mags. It's not something you carry around every day all day for self defense because it's a fairly big,

all steel heavy gun. You know, it is hunting gun, No, but it's it's just not it's a really distressing form of hunting. Yeah, yeah, that kind of hunt thing. But it's not real concealable either. It's just not your everyday carry kind of gun. Really. So I don't know, but I think it was twenty one rounds and of that, seventeen rounds actually hit their target, which is pretty good, you know, I mean, considering the stressful kind of situation. I mean, I'm assuming this guy was not cold as eyes.

He probably missed. You know, probably a lot of people when they get into shootouts, they get even an even police, they stressed so much they missed entirely. There have been the polices have I've heard stories of police having shootouts with perps at close range. He's has a gun and everybody misses everybody. I mean they empty their guns and nobody's hit anybody. It's uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, police squad or yeah, naked gun, naked gun. Yeah, police squad.

I love that. What a great name. But anyway, so this guy that's not bad. Seventeen one rounds uh and again two headshots per person except for xandive and but but it's still but still I'm not really sure why he didn't shoot her unless he was out of AMMO because she was a witness. And way very shortly after this, around three p m. Brett Martin, remember him, the guy on the bike, Brett, the heavy Yeah, the heavier bike. He rise on his bicycle. Uh, and he must have

just missed all the action. He was a t probably yeah, on a truck something, I'm sure, but yeah, Lucky for him he got there a little later and everybody else apparently the purp was probably out of AMMO anyway, but only one person was seen by him exiting the scene, which is a guy on a motorcycle who passed him going downhill on the same road when he was on

his way up. So that guy, of course was you know, kind of kind of suspected to be perhaps the purp uh he apparently been seeing on the road south of the murder scene that would be on the other side of the murder scene by some four service workers and who told him I had to leave? Was that guy the gunman? Well, um, they the police released a composite sketch of him. He he had a goatee which is kind of sinister, kind of heavy eyebrows, very sinister. But

in March he was identified. I turned out he was a businessman from Leone who had been in the area to paragline and so they haven't released his name. Apparently had no connection to Mulgay or to the al Hilly family, has no criminal record, and was a respectable businessman, and so the police took no further action on him. Although he knows maybe he was our a killer, probably not, probably not. He just happened to be in the area, but nobody else was seen leaving. So this is what's interesting.

And you guys looked at again on the street view on the street view, Uh if he'd been in a car parked right there. I mean, obviously Bret Martin would have seen him leaving the parking area and driving the other direction right um, and so I'm thinking, well, if he parked that road right there, actually it goes past the sign us is no admittance, and then it takes a sharp harapine turn to the left and goes back

up past itself a little further uphill. So he could have shot everybody and then and then exited through the woods at the back of that turnaround there and gone about a hundred feet up to the road, same road where he parked his motorcycle, bicycle, car or whatever and escaped that way. Speculation on my part, I don't know.

But anyway, Red Martin shows up, and interestingly, this is one of the things that police had trouble believing about him, is that is that he was just a few hundred meters down the road peddling out his bike and he somehow didn't hear twenty one shots being fired. Yeah, yeah, that was a little They were a little iffy on that whole thing. And then apparently they did some some sonic testing and it turns out the river is apparently

very noisy. Yeah, they're a little valley there, tight little valley with this river making a lot of noise, and apparently the mountains bounce reflects sound back and forth and stuff. So they did some sound testing and it turns out, well, he married he very well. Maybe he didn't hear the gun shots, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was he kind of near some he was on a bridge or something like that.

Maybe even Yeah, it says the road, the road is constantly crossing over the river, back and forth, and all things considered, this this caliber of lugar isn't an exceptionally loud round, is compared to you know, like a forty five or something, which is super loud, that's true. Yeah, it's not a forty four Mega or anything like that.

It's a Yeah, thirty two is considered. It's very popular around in Europe here and Americans considered kind of anemic, a lightweight round, which is why it makes sense that you wouldn't hear it with a munch background noise. Yeah, yeah, uh yeah. So anyway, Brett gets there, um and he uh he surveys the scene. Uh and and and of course Zanab apparently was out of the car staggering around

holding her head. Everybody else, of course, was in the car dead, uh, And so he helped her out, and then I think found some local hikers or something or somebody on a bike or something and asked them to go for help, and they did. Next thing, you know, the cops I'll show up. Oh and here, by the way, if you want to see this crime scene, here are the coordinates. Are you ready? Write this down? Dot seven to eight eight three one and six point to two four six four nine, and you can see the very

spot where it happened. So much easier than the U r L. Yeah, way easier. Yeah, but it is actually kind of informed to take a look at the spot. Yeah. So after matth there were two survivors. Of course, the two daughters, Santa Been Sena did survive. Zane did recover. Apparently she's has some memory issues, not not total of memory lost from that time. We're not completely understandable and

a bit of a blessing. Yeah, probably not surprising at all, but apparently from the trauma and from the physical trauma. Apparently the girls have been adopted by an anton and uncle and they're doing all right, which is good. Apparently I think they've been given new identities. Probably good too. Yeah, and there was one other weird side note, which is that I said iball Asad's wife had been buried before

right to James Thompson back in the US. On the day that she died, Jim Thompson died of a heart attack in his car. That's so weird, same day, I know, it isn't that weird? Um? Yeah? Yeah. The French police, actually I heard, tried to get his body exxumed because they wanted to test to see if he'd been poisoned or something. Apparently the family would not agree to it, and so it hasn't happened yet. You know, it's it's kind of, I guess, something worth checking out. I suppose

it's kind of a wild long ship. It's a huge log shot, but it's also a huge coincidence. Oh yeah, it's massive. Yeah, I mean yeah, But then again, when you look at this whole thing, maybe they both signed a contract with the Devil at the same time and the rest of them paid the price for it. That could be. That makes sense. Been watching Supernatural again, so I would explain that. Okay, yeah, I sort of let let that show drop. Maybe I should get back to that. Yeah,

I've been watching Narcos on Netflix. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. Get where am I here? Back to back to the Yeah, yeah, back to the axe. On the other hand, he was overweight, he had high blood pressure, he smoked cigars, so I'm probably not that remote yeah yeah, but still on the same day, that's a little weird. Yeah, I don't know. So there are a lot of theories. Obviously, the European press want nuts over this, and the internet has gone nuts over too, and the police they put out a

few interesting theories. Some of the theories assassination by the CIA, the Massad, sodom, who's saining loyalists and maybe the KGB or FSB, whatever they're calling themselves these days, perhaps a jealous lover, perhaps murder over an a state dispute um. But police have admitted they actually don't have any idea. Really, yeah, they really don't. They don't know who the target of the killing was and who was collateral damage, and for all they know it it really was just a random

thrill kill. They just aren't. They just really don't know. So humber Damn, who murdered who murdered the al Hils, who murdered Sylvan Moulier and why did they do it? Well, let's talk about there is the first let's take a break, so we'll lamit. Radio Workshop. The award winning Will Lament Radio Workshop returns for the nineteenth annual UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon.

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and we're back. Okay, first theory, alright, So our first theory. It was a hit on side al Hilly by Saddam Hussein loyalists. Um, and here's here's the basic outline of this theory. Uh, they did have the air marks of a professional head. Of course, as I said, the two headshots per victim, right, it's guaranteeing that they don't survive reasonably good marksmanship, although it was a bit sloppy, I

gotta say, leaving the daughter alive. One theory that the papers came up with is that Sid's father, cadem Al Hilly, was smuggling large quantities of cash out of Iraq. I'm not sure that if this was post Saddam or you know, because as you know, he was captured and executed. Yeah, I believe it had to been pre yeah, pre uh pre Dom's death. Yeah yeah. And so the idea here is that he's smuggling all this cash and wealth out

of Iraqs stashing and Swiss banks. Uh. And then apparently that this paper that posted this story, why did I say, post, I'm so internet he here problished this story. Uh got that they claimed to have gotten this information from German intelligence. I'm a little skeptical there. But anyway, the Hills were actually just a hop skip jump away from Geneva, Switzerland, as I just said, where all that Iraqi money was stashed.

And it turns out Swiss authorities had confirmed that he did indeed make a stop at a bank in Geneva a few days before the killings. Yeah, it's almost like he was on a large trip with his family and needed some Yeah, and well, well there was there was at least I don't know how many accounts he might have had, but I know his father is deceased, father Kadeem, who had died the year before, had left as part of the state about eight hundred euros excee the eight

hundred thousand euros. I read eight hundred euros and I thought, I don't know if that's a very big amount of money to fight over, but okay, no, no, eight hundred thousand, maybe that's a little bit better. But yeah, that's definitely But he left that in the Swiss bank account. The amount of just stopped in to check on that. I think he was in a little bit of his dispute with his brother, so maybe he just wanted to make sure it hadn't been hoovered out. Yeah. Yeah, I don't

know how Swiss banks work. I don't know if they're like every other bank where they have a web page you can just log in and check your balance, or do you have to go there in person like you're Matt Damon, you know, and present them with a little secret decoder ring and yeah, and then the bank manager has to come down and pull the key out of a secret pocket and you have to like just stand simultaneously do the lock. I think that's how it is.

Is that how it is? Okay, So that's and then you know the whole Geneva Well know is that what was that Dan Brown book? Oh yeah, yeah, I was like that, sorry, the Da Vinci code where you know, have to run it down a conveyor belt. Yeah, all of all of these tropes are correct. Bank account Hollywood always,

you know, fastidiously researched all their stuff. But so, but but of course if I did make a little a little stop over Geneva and grab a bunch of illicit Iraqi cash, that's kind of short notice to get an assassin in place to murder him, you know, on a mountain road. Well, there's automated alerts, automated alerts on my accounts. It could be they had sleeper agents in place all over Europe. It could It could also be that they suspected going to and then and so they had somebody

tailing him already. Yeah, or maybe he had actually been doing it already. I have serious reservations about that. But we'll get to this. Yeah, yeah, this is a bad theory. It's it's not that yeah, yeah, so okay, And so imagining as common sense kind of dictates that there had to be a little preparation for this. You know, it didn't just they didn't just decide in the basis of twenty hours notice to get a hitman out there to

kill him. But if it was a long time coming then uh and and the police fresh police originally believed that the origin of it was not in France. He didn't want to believe it was. It was a French person who did this. You would think that they would have assassinated him back in England. Would have been a lot simpler rather than tracking him his family all over France and killing them all of them. Maybe just shoot him when he's coming out of his office or something

like that. Yes, but I will say that uh family camping trip in this kind of not really very well traveled area, it would maybe be better with the without the bad luck of having the two bikers there, that it could feasibly be days before the bodies were found if they if they were camping, indeed, they wouldn't be expected to be checking in. Most of the family was there, so you know, way, it kind of makes sense. It's

not it's not great, but they're being reported missing. Would probably be greatly delayed by that, it would, and then finding the bodies, and then you know, probably the daughter would have actually died because she would have stayed there indefinitely. Probably know, the one that got the older ones, she probably would have Probably she would have staggered down the road. She might have made her maybe not. It just quite a bit. I agree, it's you know, but it is.

It does seem to make a little more sense if you're worried about the discovery of them. Yeah, although yeah, I don't know how ill traveled that roaded. I mean, if you go on street View, if you go from Chevaline all the way up to the murder scene, you pass a bicyclist on the road the Google car does. And then when you get to the lay by, as they call it another the podcast, they call it the lay about. No no no, I wanted to just say, no, no, no,

I have a lay about layby. Okay, but so but if you on again on the same street the same day, there were two cars parked in that spot, so you know, it's it seems to me like it's popular enough somebody would notice his BMW with a bunch of bloody corpses in it. Probably, yeah, although still it is a little bit out of the way. I mean, it's not heavily trafficed, it's it's probably is a decent place. You can just look up and down the road see if somebody coming. Okay,

good kill kill kill, you know. But but again, like I said, besides that they did, they did check out his house. They didn't find anything there, no evidence of sketchy behavior, rocky cash connection, anything like that. What they did find is that he had recently changed his locks, which the papers made something out of. I'm not sure what you can make out of that really, but and then they also found a taser, which is illegal in Britain. I think you can make something out of change manually

changed locks. No, Okay, this might just be because of the amount of reporting, but I thought that I read that taser in the freshly changed locks were something the police were all excited about when they got to the brother and not so hot and well, you mean when they got to the brothers and they found it at the brother's place. Yeah, I thought about I thought they

found it out side they did. Well. No, See, that's the thing is that I remember them talking about the fact that in one of the articles he was saying that when they went and checked out his brother, they found it weird that they had gone there, and then he had again, I think this is just confusing report a lot of this. I think like they searched Cadem's house.

That's the father. They searched his house looking for clues, right, and that was the one where but they arrested his brother and hauled him in a couple of different times. That's that's where the convers right. But the change locks and the taser come up in that conversation as well, which is why I was saying I was confusing. Now, But the search of Cadem's house was the one where they thought they found something sketchy that they thought might

be a bomb, so they BacT way. Yeah, well I've seen that reported as Cadem's house and also as Sod's house, and also as Zaid's apartment. So I seen the reports all three. It was Cadim's house that had the reporting on. This is just her No, it isn't. It isn't great. Um, it's confusing, and it makes our job harder to cut it out, guys, you know, really, come on. Yeah. But the police, meanwhile, they were checking out this theory that it hit Matt had perhaps followed them over from Britain.

So they found they found basically every security camera between Calais, France and Lake Annison, which is probably quite a few. We're talking, we're talking traffic cams and just you know

what rest areas and at gas stations or whatever. They apparently they tracked them all down once you all mean thousands of thousands of photos and found the photos of the al Hilly car with the trailer traveling across rants and they checked neighboring photos to see if there were any cars that showed up more than once that we're

tailing them. So they went through a lot of photographs here and by the way, there's been some complaced by the family, the al Hilly family of the police have really done nothing and all that stuff like they've done a lot. They've done quite a bit, they actually really have. And but so they want to do all these photos and they finally decided no, they were not tailed from England because they never found a single car twice following them. And also the other thing about it that doesn't really

make sense. It's apparently Zanna recovered enough of her memory of that day the police asked her exactly, you know, how they how they came to be up there, and what she told them is that they were hanging out at the campground. And so I said to her, well, what do you want to do? Would you like to go shopping or do you want to go out into the woods? And Zana said, let's go to the woods. I'm not poor kid. Can you imagine that being one of the only things you remember from a day like that? Yeah,

I know, poor kid, that's just sad. But and so that. So this wasn't even a planned thing, which means it's hard to premeditate putting a guy, putting a guy off there laying like an assassin laying and wait for them. So if so, if it's I, if an assassin was laying in wait for anybody, it would have been Molier and not the al Hillies. So it looks like they were probably the collateral damage here. Malier was the target. So let's talk about that theory. It was a planned

hit on Molier. Okay, wait, well, you need to finish up those stuff about condem because we talked about a little bit about the whole thing with him and the Hussain regime. Oh oh, Conde, I guess, yeah, that might be a little bit confusing there. I mean Kadeem L Hilly of course, and Zai's dad. He moved to England with his family in y one. He moved back to Iraq in seventy four, did not take his sons with him apparently, and stayed there until two because he still

had businesses over there, and so he basically was an entrepreneur. Yeah, and so he basically went over there and I think eventually ran his businesses and eventually wound them down or sold them or whatever, and got out in two, which was kind of after Saddam's accession to power, because I think Saddam officially became you know, the big boss man in like seventy nine I believe, I'm not totally sure

about that, right around seventy nine. Yeah, I mean, he was kind of the power behind the throne for a long time there, but he didn't become the big cahuna until about seventy nine and um. And so there's no indication that they were buddies or that they had any connection whatsoever, and the way things are, so this whole stashing Iraqi hidden war cash thing is probably just just

something to papers. Yeah, I think so. I don't know if there was any real evidence for it, because there's no evidence that Saddam and Kadim knew each other, you know. And and for that matter, as I had said that Kaud he even actually did not like Saddam at all. Come on, Joe us from Iraq, he was buddies with, Yes, we're friends. Ye, so well, actually it was kind of you know, if you if you sort of let things take their course, eventually everybody would have been his buddy

because he killed everybody he wasn't. Yeah, yeah, that was yeah, I'm joking, ye don't. We don't think that. Actually, I really love the quotes from my friends who I can't I can't directly quote because there's some foul language in here. Um. But he was blanking crazy, is what they used to always say when people ask them about what they thought about the pseudonymous Yeah, nobody, nobody who left that area like, yeah, yeah, it was rather ruthless. But yeah, so next our next

it was a plan hit on mal Sylvan the bicyclist. Okay, well, was at this time taking a three year leave of absence for this job as a welder. Yeah, and I don't know why he was doing that. How do you get us for a year? That's crazy maternity to leave right there? Well, I mean alternity leave first of all, right, but but sometimes contracts aren't as plentiful, and maybe it's possible that he said, hey, listen, I'm going to take a three year sabbatical, you know, let me know when

there's work again. Yeah, it's just it's a weird number to me. I'm sure that in in Europe it maybe it's something that's more college. Yeah, they like they definitely give people more. Like Intel here only gives you about a one year sabbatical, and Intel is weird for giving people sabbatical. Yeah. Yeah, So it's just it's a strange number to me, that's all I'm saying. And that's kind of a strange number. I don't know that I want to take that much time off from my job because

I would probably forget how to do it too. Yeah. Yeah, But but anyway, he was doing whatever he was doing that, particularly of course riding his bicycle, living with his girlfriend, Claire shoots. Uh according to yeah, yeah, according to the papers, Claire was from a very well off family. Apparently your dad owned a big successful pharmacy. Apparently she was buying it from him. And the papers took that to me that she was like a millionaire, so he was a

gold digger. Yeah. Uh, And they said the papers also said Claire's family didn't like Molier and felt that he was sponging off of Claire, and then perhaps the family had had him killed, you know, And uh, all right, but then there was another theory apparently that Mollier also like to fool around um, and that maybe there was a jealous boyfriend out there didn't wanted to whack him. Yeah,

so that was another theory that was out there. But of course, this this all runs, this all runs back into the same problem we have with the al hill He's being the target of the target of the head is that apparently nobody knew moll was actually going to bicycle up that road. He wasn't he was, well, he was don't on a bicycle that really was equipped for that kind of terrain. If yeah, he was on a racing bike. And and actually that's a paved road. But it does have some It does have some cracks and

potholes in it. Uh, if you you know, you can see it. You can actually if you if you weave skillfully enough, you can for the most part, stay on smooth pave. But if you weave in between all the holes and stuff, it's gonna be a few patches where you're gonna, you know, rough up your little bike a

little bit. And I don't know how. You know, those those racing bikes have got those incredibly super skinny little tires on that looked like, you know, if you run over a rock about bigger than your thomb, you're gonna totally destroy it, that kind of thing. Yeah, but apparently, you know, he was, he was cruising off that thing. Maybe he was so well off that he didn't worry about ruining his tires. I don't know, but he was. He was apparently, as far as we know, just randomly

cycling up the end of the countryside that day. Yeah,

we don't know that for a certainty. I mean, maybe he was planning a secret rendebou up there, or maybe he told someone well maybe the best I was able to hear is that he told he was with Claire and her father, I think, and said he wanted to go out for a bike ride and was thinking about heading like south of the lake, and the Claire's father said something, well, you can take that road south out of Chevalry, and that's kind of a cool drive, you see.

That sounds a little suspicious. Yeah, yeah, but that that road also has a lot of forks on it, And so he could have been they could have said take this turn and he just didn't take that turn and took the road straight the whole way. Yeah, it could have been that he was actually suggesting a different route than the one that that the Molier actually took, or they are covering up for something and yeah, yeah, and

so yeah, so I could just picture it. Now he's out the door and other guys immediately okay, get to the spot now, ye coming Yeah. Now. The only the only way I can see this working out as as sort of a hit with molis target is is that perhaps he was the one that between the two parties between Sad and while Ya he is the one that was from the area, could perhaps have planned some sort of a meet up at that spot. We'll never know.

There's absolutely no evidence to support that, and there's no evidence that he was involved in any sort of covert activity that would get this kind of thing that would get you killed, right right, So we'll just have to take that as you know, probably not, yeah, I mean, And then on top of that, on top of that, there's this question of how ruthless and horrible and heartless would have to be to not only want to kill one man, but then also think, oh, you know what,

now I have to kill this entire family, including a seven year old girl. Like it's like that's just another step above. Yeah. Even in my most psycho moments, I would probably back opposite, you know, I think I'll wait until another day to kill you would think, yeah he would hope, Yeah, you would hope, so yeah, or maybe he was just that angry. Uh yeah, Okay, So much

for that theory. There's another theory, which is that his brother Zaid had him killed over this state dispute, because, as I said, Cad had died the father and left eight hundred thousand euros and then Swiss Bank along with two excepting one house in Britain south of London and also in apartment in Spain. So I don't know how much all of that was worth a property. It's fairly valuable. I mean property itself tends to have a pretty decent

price tag associated with it. So yeah, yeah, so somewhat valuable. It was rumored that the brothers were in a bitter dispute over the estate. Uh brothers, Zaid says. No, there was some disagreement, but it wasn't at the point where the people were ready to kill anybody. And to me, I don't know, it doesn't seem like enough money to go killing your brother over well your brother and his entire family. Well there's that too. Yeah. The other again, well he might not have liked his in laws, so

he wasn't worried about the loss of them. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe the nieces were kind of annoying to Yeah, that's but yeah, that's it's still it still does kind of run up against the whole problem of how how do you position your assassin to be in that particular spot and you just can't get past that little barrier that but one of hankey thing they found

it checked his phone records and they found it. He called it never calls to five phone numbers in Romania and the week's leading up to the murder, which is a lot and apparently the call the call stopped after the murder. Can you refresh my memory? I don't remember what he does for a living. I don't. Uh, he is an accountant at that was the place. I can't remember the name of it. But yeah, he's got a

but basically an accounting job. Yeah. So what I mean, is it possible he could have been calling some random overseas client. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. What was the date of the killing, Uh, September twelve, twelve. Yeah, that doesn't really correlate to any text times that I know of. Okay, I had no idea. But it could have been work related, I don't you know. I don't could have been could have been, um, some late night

phone rendezvous. Yeah, it could have been he just was just calling one of those nine hundred numbers that happened to be in Romania. Could have been could have been that. I don't know. If my name is off, what would you like off? I'm a sexy woman. My name is Mario. Oh yeah. So yeah, did he have a good explanation for what? I don't. I don't recall that he ever provided them with an explanation for that. Now it does seem I never found out what the explanation for what

those calls. I'm starting to believe that actually it was happening. Is they were being followed by a helicopter the entire time. Yeah, and then they just dropped somebody down. They pulled to the side. Somebody just repelled down a rope, a bunch of shots, pulled back up, went away. Some some kind of stealth technology from Romania that we don't know about. Drone with a gun. It could have been how fire missile, probably not that, probably not that. That would be some

spectacular police profidence. It blows him all to smither rainge. Wow, look at all these full it was a luger, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, it's not. There's not a good explanation for somebody being stationed there have been in that spot. So then so then then it would be a random killing, very likely random killing. Yeah, which is also weird. Somebody, well, somebody just wanted to kill somebody and hung out in that spot. That's so. That's and there are a couple of a

couple of suspects that they stumbled across. So I gotta tell you they're not great. Yeah they're there, but if they were great, they'd be in custody and we were probably yeah, probably a random killing suspects. We've got Patrice Menagaldo who he was fifty years old and fourteen when he was interviewed by the police. So he used to be a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, which I understand is a pretty rough outfit. Yeah, yeah, this is

what I hear about him. Anyway, Apparently they had asked Claire Shuts that's Molier's girlfriend, uh to give them a list of everybody she had ever known. Apparently Patrice had had dated her sister or that was still maybe even dating her sister. I don't think I could do that everybody you've ever known. It would take me a long time to pickure that horrible with names, and it's only because of social media that I would be like, oh, yeah, that one guy that I knew for like three years,

but I don't remember his name. I mustache you know, yeah that guy, Yeah, I really can't. But anyway that it maybe took her weeks to get get the list to him, but anyway, they looked him up. He was against she knew him, but he wasn't a suspect. No, they interviewed him for they interviewed him and just you know, just to see if he maybe knew something, even without realizing he knew something, you know, you know what I mean, And and and talk to him, and then and then

about two months later he committed suicide. Yeah, he left a seven page suicide note which the police will not release. Local prosecutor did did quote one sentence, which is quote, I could not handle being a suspect and a murder unquote. Um, except, of course, as we said, he wasn't a suspect, And of course the tabloids, you know, speculated that perhaps he was driven to death by his guilt or by by

fear of getting caught. Yeah. I also always wondered if, because he was in the French Foreign Legion, if there had been stuff coming out about nefarious acts that were done while people were in the legion, And so you know what I'm saying. It's also it also could have been one sentence in a seven page, single space, uh you know, giant monologue that this guy has written, and they've just plucked this one thing the list of things

he cannot stand. Yeah, it could. Yeah, I mean the smell of feet and the food in this place, and being implicated in murdered or the French language. Imagine how I'm saying that would be in France. I have a hard time believing that if there was any reason to believe that anything in this seven page suicide note would reasonably lead to him being an actual suspect, the police would have released it, or at least said, yes, we

are looking into it, we think he actually was a suspect. Yeah, and if the only reference in this entire seven page note, it's just this one sentence, and I gotta say, it's not much to go on there. It's bad. Yeah, it kind of is, so this kind of yeah, I think I don't I don't take it too seriously. And the next guy, and this guy has also also found his

way to the papers. He lived just in a little town just west of Chevaline, and the reason he came to police's attention is that they checked all the cell phone records. They wanted to see what cell phones paying the local cell tower that day. It turns out there were about four thousand of them, so they checked them all again. The police weren't slackers on this one. They did a lot of legwork. And one of the people whose cell phone paying that tower was it was Eric

the Neva. So deva su perfect Yeah devas close enough. Again, not exactly surprising that he was on his cell phone that day. Four thousand other people were. Uh they they they tracked on all the numbers. They came knocking on his door. Uh. He was forty eight years old at the time. He had out a job as a policeman, which apparently he got fired from recently because he had

too much of a temper. Oh, yeah, that doesn't apparently. Yeah, he'd also recently applied for a permit to carry again, although personally I don't find anything wrong with that, but whatever, But again nothing nothing really immoral or illegal. But it turned out, unfortunately for him, he had a collection of guns.

And I don't know how the police if they searched his house, or if maybe he just answered his door and they looked over his shoulder and there's all these schmitcherub machine guns hanging on the I don't really know how they found it. But it turned out that he had a collection. Uh. There are a lot of them were vintage like World War two era weapons, and apparently you know, at least in this part of France. Apparently there's a lot of old old World War Two Eric

guns in private collections, part of the resistance. So yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of pride there. Yeah. And you know, if I had a choice, my my, my great uncle gives me an old luder and old Schmitzer. I'm not going to take to the police to be melted down. I'm gonna hang on to it. But but you might, you might declare it. Well, that's it, and it was not illegal necessary, but he had to declare his collection. He hadn't done that, So you've gotten a little hot

water over that. But apparently charges were dropped and nothing really came of it, but not the least that got him, you know, put on the front page of a lot of newspapers. Poor guy. Again, there's no real case against him. Um, so that's it. Our next guy came out, came sort of came out more recently. Um, this is Michael or excuse me, Michelle hacked a guy. Uh. I think it's

Prince from Michael, right. Yeah. He actually he's actually Belgian. Uh, he's living in France these days, apparently because he was convicted in Belgium. In tooth was a native shooting his brother, his sister in law and his nephew. This was in two thousand five. Uh involved apparently shooting one bullet through a wall and I can apparently, like you know, kind of sort of came close to them and I don't know if this is an accident what happened. But he

was tried on three counts of attempted murder. Yeah it's a magic bullets, I know, I know. But he he only got ten months for that crime, although that might have been ten months plus time already served well when you trial too. I'm not really sure. But apparently he was a potential suspect and a double murder in nineteen eighty six because a sellmate of his and said that he had confessed to that crime. Yeah. I knows, such a problem with that. I have a problem with all

those jailbird confessions and stuff, I really do. But but here's what the murder was. The murder was in eighty six. It happened in Brittany, French ye nine six, two British bicyclists on vacation were shot. UH. Their bodies were found buried in a shallow grave. In a corn field and as a man and a woman. And the investigating policeman who since became a private investigator's name is Pascal huch And said that the prate the two cases were uh he said, well, let me quote here, quote there are

similarities between these killings. Weapons were used to close range, and both took place in isolated areas. Unquote. That's a pretty thin connection. Well that that would describe a lot of murders. Yeah, yeah, I really would. And actually that the m was not the same. I mean, the most detailed kind of heard is that the victims have been tied up, they were shot with a rifle buried in a shallow grave, which is a totally different m oh than this one. Yeah yeah, And so I don't really

see the connection there myself. Um. And again, um, even if he didcommit those murders, you know, which I'm not

so sure he did. So that's Michelle hacked. Um let's move on to our next one real quick, like, okay, this is this is this one has just come out like just last year, less than a year ago, right, this guy was unknown to the authorities until oh, I don't know, September last year perhaps, Yeah, yeah, he nordal Lellen day h thirty five X soldier who recently I think that was February, finally confessed to abducting and murdering an eight year old girl that was in Chanre, which

is just southwest of Fantasy. Uh. And that's how he that's what he sort of got on the radar for this particular crime. So he was attending a wedding. Apparently the little girls I think she was eight, was at the same wedding. He abducted her in the years wee hours of the morning from the party and uh, and then you know, drove away with her and then came

back to the party without her. And this this was all figured out eventually using you know, like close circuit TV and security cameras, but of course the police didn't put pieces together until like September. This was in late oct like late August. And uh, it turns out that he had also picked up a hitchhiking soldier twenty three year old guy named or no excuse me, twenty four years old Arthur Noyer, that was in April murdered him also.

He confessed to that just like like days ago. In March twenty nine of finally finally fest up to that one too, and that was also that also took place his skill was found. Like, but I think about twenty miles from Lake Annessey between the two you can seems like it's hunting grounds. Yeah, kind of seems like so naturally that that gets him on the police radar for this guy perhaps being the killer in this case too.

It seems well, he's an excel well and he's an ex soldier, right, so when was he serving as a soldier? Um writer that he was actually like a dog handler or something like that, but he was serving, right, Hey did serve? Yeah, so there be records of his whereabouts. Yeah, like four years ago, actually six years ago, five and a half years and a half years ago at thirty five. You would assume that, you know, at the end of

your twenties you'd still be serving. But I don't necessarily a lot of people do their service like eighteen to twenty two right in there. I don't know if that's typical. You know in America, you sign up for four years, you go into eighteen or nineteen in your early twenties. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know, And again the seems different. Yeah, and then and part of it, you know, to the press. I mean they think, like, oh, he was in the military,

he's going to be a good shot. The killer was a good shot, so were a lot of other A lot of people in the military really can't shoot, were the damn and a lot of us Yeah, a lot of Yeah, and a lot of a lot of people who have never been in the military can shoot very well. It's actually in this particular case, you know, there was all this talk about it being a professional hit and actually shooting people in the head at that close of range.

Isn't that hard? You know, it really isn't. I mean, I mean, from an emotional point of view, it would be, but I mean from a technical point of view, it's not not that hard. Yeah. It also seems like, you know, he abducted this eight year old girl. There was a seven year old girl that was severely injured on the scene. It seems like, you know, what was stopping him from abducting her all that time. You know, he just if it was him, he would have had just murdered her

entire family. I mean, take out with you, man. I'm not advocating for that. I'm sorry. I just don't. Yeah, no, I get what you're saying. And it seems different, totally different. Well, yeah, he seems like more of an opportunist, that's what we're talking about, Nordel lan days at just this a total opportunist and and and really somebody who likes his victims one at a time. Yeah, and way less powerful than him. Yeah, probably that too. And then definitely unsuspecting. But the police

are still checking out any possible connection. They're also looking into any connection between apparently nineteen other mysterious disappearances in the area. Apparbably there's been a bunch, uh, and so he might be connected to at least some of them, probably not all of them, you know, I mean there's no there's no telling. There might be two or three serial killers in that particular part of France right now, I mean really probably not. Probably not that big of surprise,

so I don't see. Um. Yeah, the other bicyclist on here, which one is that he's not a suspect, which on that Bret Brett Martin, now he was, he was considered to be potentially a suspect, you know, And of course the Internet made a lot of the fact that well you got this this engineer who worked on satellites, and you got this this guy who worked in the nuclear industry. And then the guy who finds the body just happens to be an x R a F pilot. You know,

A lot was made of that whole thing. Yeah, and so they thought big, big government conspiracy and all that stuff. But also, you know, it is possible that Brett Martin himself was the killer. But they did, I mean they the police obviously gave him a close look. I think gun for gunpounder, rescue, uh and all that stuff, and you know, and I think probably checked his schedule, like did the guy have enough time to to start where

he did? People saw him? How did you have enough time to peddle all the way up there and kill everybody and then get the word out. Maybe he did, I don't know, but it seems unlikely. Yeah, I know, he has not considered a viable suspect either. So that's it for the guys by name. There's other sort of vaguer theories on the internet, one of which is it was a road rage incident. Yeah, it's a single car

road basically, well, where did the other car go? The other car had to have left and gone down the road where he's not supposed to go unless again, again, you only get to go down those roads unless you're a poor service worker or a local residents. Otherwise you're not supposed to go down and be down there. Of course, you can always till you knows that the rules. You know too, I mean, probably get away with it. You

could also be a local resident. Yeah, it could be that too, And I tend to think that I tend to think that whoever did this probably was a local because I mean acts, because nobody was seeing other than the guy on the motorcycle. Nobody was seen leaving the area. And I guess you could walk out of there on foot maybe, you know, But so if you committed, if you committed the murders, you could get out by the back way, because if you follow those roads, it's kind

of a maze. But you really will come back out to civilization again about five miles south of there, probably considering how how winey the roads are, probably more like about fifteen road miles. You're gonna be doing a lot of switchbacks things like that and everything. It's not something that I think you could really do if you were a stranger. To the area. But if you knew the area really well, you could kill those people and take the back roads and clear out the other side of

those mountains without anybody seeing you exiting the area. And so that's why I suspect it was a local that did this, who knew the back roads. Yeah, and that's it. I'll throw out one more theory which somebody put out there was racially motivated. They see an Arab looking guy in a nice car and they decided to kill him. Of course, yeah, I rolled that was that was you know, I just thrown that one in there. It's a it's uh,

you know. And then unfortunately, you know, the white French guy shows up and you gotta kill him too, you know, Oh my god, you know. But so I don't I don't buy that one. The only contribution I had to make sure the French police on this one. As I think I mentioned to you, this guy's the series that I have. Well, it's not a theory, yeah, the bag

at you know, that's it's the luger. Which is the thing about lugers is that, um, you know, I've seen lugers for sale and stuff like that, and maybe it's different in France, but here in America generally used lugers. You see him with one magazine, this one had three. It's just kind of unusual. It's really, actually very unusual to see a luger with three bags. So if I were the police, I'd sort of keep that in the

back of my head. Not a major thing, but that's that's kind of Maybe you're looking at a collector here, somebody like that. Um, yeah, I guess. I mean, listen, if this thing is an heirloom, because we've we made that, we made a statement earlier about it could have been

something somebody got as an heirloom from all over. Well, then that means that great Grandpa what's his name had several clips because at that time you had multiple clips because you were shooting the Nazis and you needed to make sure you had a fresh mag at all times. There's nothing to big of a deal. Typically those were carried by officers and that they then they might maybe carry one extra mag I mean, but you kill a couple of Nazi officers and you've got yourself a couple

of extra magazines. Maybe I don't know. Again, it's just it's it's it's yeah, yeah, it's a good point. Yeah, when you medal of honor, there's always magazine. It's just laying around right everywhere. That's what I love about that. But now anyway, then that's maybe maybe it's different in Europe. I don't know, but I know here in America, luger

mags are hard to come by. They're expensive. You gotta go, you know, you gotta go to a collector, one of these rare guys that you know, buys and celsis things to get them. So it just seems a little unusual to see one with two extra mags. Well it's a ruined gun at this point, probably right, because the grip the gun still work. Yeah, you can replace those, the gun will still work fine. Yeah, so that's really what they need is the ruined gun because the guy probably

threw it in the lake or something. But I was going to say, really, what they need to do is find all the gun repair guys you know, a two mile radius and say, all right, which one of you fixed a luger that had a broken grip? Yeah, yeah, well there are there are actually uh they're actually craftsmen who make replacement grips for guns. Like you can buy some fancy Rosewood grips for your must revolve or something

like that. So yeah, contact all those guys who ordered some Luger grips, you know, and then there you go, that's your guy. Yeah, guys, come on, I know, I know the but the police, you know, again and again, unless Nordal the serial killer decides to confess, which I really doubt he will because number one, I doubt that

he did it. But even if he did do it, I don't think he's going to confess because he didn't fess up to killing the little girl and also killing that twenty four year old soldier until the police presented him with all the evidence against him. They had him dead to rights, and then he finally fessed up and said where the bodies were and stuff. So they don't have anything on anybody for this killing. So I highly suspect nobody is ever going to get caught for this one. Yeah. Well, actually,

the French police, there is one thing. If he started to go fund me or every appropriation to bring us to France, we might be still take a trip. We will come over there, and the camera glued to my face all the time because taking crime scene photographs not enjoying the beautiful that's happening alright. So anyway, if you're if you have any ideas thoughts on this one, send us an email. We have an email account. It's um

Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. You forgot it for a second there, Well, now there was a little posse there. I was a about to recite my own perfect I just caught myself in the neck of time. Yeah, okay. Also, of course, we have a web page that's Thinking Sideways podcast dot com where you can find our episodes. There's an episode list you can there's a link to buy merch and god what else do we have on there? There's the don't forget about the link to premium. Yes,

I always forgot about that. Yes, there is a list list linked link. Yeah yeah. And by the way, speaking of Stitcher Premium, you will find us there if you haven't already. Bet on Stitcher Premium. You get our episodes what three or four days earlier, you get them on money instead of Thursday with in their commercial free and you also get bonus content. Yeah, you get a free

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liked those, especially good ratings and great reviews. We love those. And of course we're on social media Facebook, where we have a group and a page. Yeah, and so you know you like the page and then you joined the group. That's where all the action is. Uh, there's lots of back and forth and all kinds of good stuff. And we're on Twitter, where we are thinking sideways. Anything good on Twitter these days? Devon? Now, I didn't think so. And we have Subreddit thinking sideways and uh, let nothing

going on and going on there. And of course we're on Instagram. Yeah yeah, Instagram, lots of fun, cool stuff out there. I thinking sideways podcast on that one. Yeah, oh yes, that's right. I forgot taking sideways podcast because there's another You guys keep mentioning them, you're giving them tons of traffic. Give are your and call it good? Yeah, okay, it sounds good. So that's everything you need to know, I think. All right, well that's it for this week.

Any final thoughts you guys. This one's super sad, Yeah it is. It is really sad. Yeah, especially a little the little kids and all. Yeah yeah, but anyway, like I said, send us over there. We'll fix it, all right, But talk you guys later. Thie guys,