Cops wrongly arrest man after mistaking him for French aristocrat wanted in the 2011 murder of his wife, four children
After killing his wife and four children in April 2011, a French aristocrat who allegedly fled to Scotland where he secretly lived for nine years and even got married for a second time after getting plastic surgery done on his face was believed to have been recently arrested by the authorities.
A man believed to be Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, 58, was arrested when he arrived at the Scottish airport on Friday, October 11, afternoon - nine years after he was accused of killing his wife, Agnes, 48, and children Arthur, 20, Tomas, 18, Anne, 16, and Benoit, 13. The victims' bodies were found buried in the garden of the family house in Nantes, western France, along with their two pet Labradors, the Guardian reported.
Guy Joao, 69, was detained at Glasgow airport after it was thought he was Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, who has has not been seen since the killings in April 2011, reports The Sun. Joao is a Frenchman married to a Scottish woman, he was later released after the misconception was cleared.
Soon after the bodies were discovered by the authorities, Dupont de Ligonnès was said to have gone "on the run." On Friday, at 2:30 p.m., the Scottish police said the "digital fingerprint" of a man who landed in Glasgow corresponded to that of Ligonnès. Police then carried out DNA tests to establish whether the man arrested at Glasgow airport was the same suspect who was responsible for murdering his entire family.
“Teams of detectives from the national service for the research into fugitives and from the Nantes police will be traveling to Glasgow on Saturday,” the prosecutor in Nantes, Pierre Sennès said after reports confirmed that fingerprints found at the detained man’s home did not match those of Dupont de Ligonnès.
The man arrested carried a passport where his name was mentioned as Guillaume Joao. "Mr. Joao looks nothing like De Ligonnès, and nor was the man who was arrested in Glasgow," said a French investigating source. "It may be that De Ligonnès has radically disguised himself over the years, but there are still lots of questions to be answered."
While many believed that Dupont de Ligonnès most likely killed himself after killing his family, a French newspaper called Ouest France reported, "A very reliable source specifies that the fugitive had even remarried in Great Britain."
Since 2011, there have been more than 900 purported sightings of Dupont de Ligonnès.