Serialously with Annie Elise
260: Murdered His Family…Or Did He?! | The Dupont Murders
Mon, 14 Apr 2025
This week on Serialously with Annie Elise, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès appeared to be a devoted father and husband, but in 2011, his perfect life crumbled in the most horrific way imaginable. After systematically executing his entire family, including his wife and four children, he lived among their bodies for days before disappearing into the night. Did He murder his entire family - or was something else going on? 🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks 🔎 Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to EXTRA deep dive episodes every week on Apple! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164 Follow Annie on Socials 📸 🩷Instagram: @ _annieelise, https://www.instagram.com/_annieelise/?hl=en 💜TikTok: @_annieelise, https://www.tiktok.com/@_annieelise?lang=en 🗞️ Substack: @annieelise, https://substack.com/@annieelise 💙Facebook: @10tolife, https://www.facebook.com/10toLIFE ⭐️Sponsors ⭐️ Ro Body: Go to http://Ro.co/AE to see if you qualify. Liquid IV: Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to http://Liqiudiv.com and use code AE at checkout. Mint Mobile: Shop data plans at http://Mintmobile.com/ae. Shop Annie’s Closet & Must-Haves! 👗 Poshmark: https://posh.mk/Tdbki6Ae0Rb ShopMY: https://shopmy.us/annieelise Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/10tolife?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_aipsfshop_BKN1ZMCMEZHACVFQ2R75&language=en_US Disclaimer ‣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 🎙️ Follow the podcast for FREE on all podcast platforms! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164 Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6HdheEH8WeMTHoe5da34qU All Other Platforms: https://audioboom.com/channels/5100770-serialously-with-annie-elise Get Involved or Recommend the Case 💬 About Annie: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: [email protected] Episode Sources 🔗 BBC Conspiracy Watch Daily Mail Familicide: A Systematic Literature Review France 24 Le Figaro NBC News Oprah Daily Paris Match Radio Times Science Daily The Connexion The Independent The Province Unsolved Mysteries *Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. •••••••••••••••••• Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.
Chapter 1: Who is Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès and what happened to his family?
All right, so today's case, the one I wanted to talk to you about, this one is really interesting. I haven't heard a lot of people talk about it before, but I did see it on, I think it was Unsolved Mysteries, which that's always a good show, right? But they didn't really do a lot of in-depth, deep dive, nitty gritty details that, you know, I like live and die by.
So I had to go a little bit further. I wanted to just research it because it's a really complex case. It's like hidden family secrets with a splash of deceit. I don't want to say family annihilator, but I just wanted, let me break it all down for you and then you can be the judge. And, you know, I'm going to stop talking.
On April 21st of 2011, five members of the Dupont de Ligonnès family were found buried under the patio of the family home in Nantes. Dupont de Ligonnès had gone to great lengths to disguise his appearance, even undergoing cosmetic surgery.
One day in October of 2011, a man named Xavier Dupont de Leonis called the private school where his two young children went. And I should say his two youngest children, because his oldest son, Arthur, was 21 years old and away in college. His next oldest, Thomas, was also 18 years old and at a different college. So Xavier didn't call either one of their schools, just for the youngest kids.
And these two kids were 16-year-old Anne and 13-year-old Benoit. And he was calling the school to notify them that he just got a new job in Australia. Which, if you can tell by all of these names and how I'm pronouncing them, Thomas, Xavier, these very fancy names, which I'm going to honestly do my best not to butcher, they were from France, not from Australia.
They were from a town in France called Nata. So this was going to be a big move. So he tells the school that his kids are going to be transferring to this school in Australia. And he also was asking the school not to bill him for the following month's tuition. But mainly, the point of the call was just to say, hey, don't worry about them. They're going to stop showing up for class.
Don't be alarmed. It's because we're moving. Please don't bill me. That's the situation. He was also calling some of their friends, some of their neighbors all around this same time, telling them not to worry if they didn't see his wife Anya surround either. However, he didn't tell them the same story that he told the school. It was kind of similar.
He said that he and the whole rest of his family were moving out of the country, and nobody should really worry too much if they stopped hearing from all of them. But he also told his friends a whole different story with like a big secret layer on top of it. He told them that he was actually a secret agent working for the American government.
Specifically, he said he worked for the DEA, which is the Drug Enforcement Agency. And he said that the reason that he and his family were about to leave town was because they had to now go on the run, all because his secret identity had been exposed. Which I think we can all agree right now, okay, that's a pretty wild claim. Maybe it's true, but I've also seen the movie The Americans.
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Chapter 2: What suspicious activities did neighbors and police notice before the discovery?
Even with Xavier telling everybody that he was moving out of the country and he was going to be on the run and that he was going to have no time to really pack up. He was just going to have to leave with no notice without saying goodbye. They didn't sell the house. They didn't hire movers to pack their things. It was just very quick and kind of leaving quickly in the night.
But even knowing that that's what they were told they should expect, they still felt nervous. They still... were worried about things, especially seeing it boarded up. Not nervous enough to call the police immediately because, again, Zavia had given them a little bit of warning, but they did end up calling the police two days later.
So some of these officers, after they were called, then came to investigate on Wednesday, April 13th. Now, at this point, it was just a wellness check, right? They just wanted to make sure that everything was safe, everything was good. So they go up to the front door and they saw all of the same things that these neighbors had seen.
There was that note on the door in French about not delivering any mail any longer. The shutters and blinds were all closed. They started knocking. Nobody came to the door. But the officials still wanted to get a look inside. They wanted to make sure that everything was okay, that there wasn't some sort of foul play going on.
So they ended up calling a locksmith who came and helped them gain entry. And once they got into the house, everything looked pretty normal. Nothing of value was missing. The beds had been stripped of the sheets and the blankets, which was a little bit odd, but maybe it's because they did take their bedding with them. Other than that, though, everything was very clean, very neat, very organized.
There were definitely absolutely no signs of any struggle. There was no blood, no bodies, no other evidence that you would expect to see if the family was in some kind of trouble, right? Really, the only thing that was weird and that stood out was just how normal this house looked, if that makes sense.
Because again, if everyone had just uprooted, moved out of the country, you would think that they would have taken some things with them. Clothing, jewelry, books, laptops, things like that. But literally every single thing was exactly where you would expect it. Almost like they had all gone out to dinner rather than just moved out of the country and had been missing for two days at this point.
But after searching the whole house and finding nothing of concern, the investigators just decided that the family probably went on this, like, spur-of-the-moment, last-minute vacation, or that there wasn't anything foul play or worrisome here. So they just left. They didn't open a missing persons case on any single one of them. They didn't investigate further. It was just case closed.
But as you can imagine, this is not what the neighbors wanted to hear. Because the thing is, these people were people who knew Xavier, who knew his wife, knew his family and the kids. They knew what kind of people they were. And yes, some people are very spontaneous. I get that. They'll say things like, hey, let's drop everything. Let's go on this vacation. Let's do this.
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Chapter 3: How were the bodies discovered and what was found at the crime scene?
Now, it's hard to say for sure what the setup was, because most of the sources are translations of news articles that were in French, and I don't speak French, so it's really hard to know if Google Translate is getting all the little details right.
But based on what I've read, my best guess is that there was this type, like, of elevated patio or porch, maybe raised up somehow, and then this garden was sort of underneath it or below it. And I'm assuming that only because a bunch of sources say that the police made this discovery in a garden. But then other sources say that it was underneath the porch.
So I think it must be layered or stacked in some sort of way. My speculation is that both of these claims fit somehow. So anyway, the police were in this garden slash porch area slash patio area. And they saw something lying in the dirt right there off to the side. And it was a human leg.
So right away, they started digging through the dirt and digging around this leg, trying to see what's going on underneath it, right? And right there where they started digging, they discovered that there were bodies buried in this backyard. Multiple bodies. It was basically a large grave that had multiple bodies inside of it.
One was a middle-aged woman who was the right size and age that appeared to be his wife. The other remains belonged to two boys who were either in their late teens or their early twenties. And then there was one girl in her teens. So the odds with this seemed to be very good that they were three out of four of Xavier's children here in this grave, this grave. makeshift grave in the backyard.
The girl had to be 16-year-old Anne, and the boys were eventually determined to be 12-year-old Benoit and 21-year-old Arthur. There were also two dogs in this same mass grave. These were the family pets. So all of them, including the dogs, had visible bullet wounds. The police could tell how they all died without even needing to order an autopsy.
And they were also all still wearing pajamas, almost like they had been killed in their sleep. Each one was wrapped in plastic and in bedsheets, those same bedsheets that had been missing from all of the bedrooms during those first wellness checks. Remember when I mentioned that the beds were stripped? That's what they were wrapped in. They were also buried with these little religious objects.
I'm talking wooden crosses, rosary beads, candles, statues of the Virgin Mary, like all sorts of little religious trinkets. Now, clearly, this wasn't a formal religious burial, not at all. I mean, it was nothing where a priest was involved, nothing where there was anything formal, not at all.
But it does seem like whoever buried these people in this yard wanted to have some sort of religious burial, almost give these people all the things that they needed so that they could get to heaven and be right with God, something like that. The question, of course, that everybody was wondering in this moment was, who would do this? Who would want to hurt the entire family?
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Chapter 4: What is known about Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès' background and personality?
But I just wanted to like kind of give you some ideas of what those numbers are so that you can understand the thought process of this point from the investigation team is, is he still alive? Could he be on the run? Because again, in cases like this, oftentimes they do take their own life.
Now, the problem this time with this case was that there was no evidence that Xavier had died by his own hand, or that he was even dead at all. Clearly, his body wasn't anywhere in the house. So, maybe this was not just a typical family annihilator situation. Maybe there was something more to it. So, at this point, it was really hard to say anything for sure.
But I do think that it's helpful to look back at Xavier's history to kind of get a sense of his personality, kind of get a sense of what makes him tick, see if maybe he did have motive or a profile that fits with your standard family annihilator. Which to start, it's really important to know that Xavier was a member of the nobility. He was literally a count.
And I think it's worth digging into that a little bit because I think it's important to this whole story as a total. Because I'll be honest, when I first saw that he was a count, I really had no idea what that meant. I knew that it was in some sort of ranking in the royals, but I didn't really know the gravity of what it meant. The only thing I've heard is Countess Luanne on Housewives.
So let me just kind of break it down really quickly. In France, basically, if you're somebody from a noble family, then it's considered beneath you if you were to work, if you were to have a regular job, which is kind of a problem for a few reasons. I mean, first of all, it's like, hello, you're not above anybody else. You need to work. But then also, where does the income come from?
Unless you just have endless streams of generational wealth, how is everybody just in the family who's considered royal allowed to just sit on their butt the whole time? I don't think it works the way it works with the actual royal family.
where you know and again i'm probably gonna butcher this but like how taxes in america would then pay for that not like that we pay i'm gonna just stop talking i was just trying to make a um a similarity of how they earn income and they earn income from a variety of ways but anyway My point is that if you come from a noble family, it's like looked down upon you to have a regular job.
And what I did find that I thought was kind of bizarre during my research is that there are literally non-profits out there that exist where they just take these donations and then they give that money away to these rich, noble people. All so that they can keep living in luxury without having to earn any of it, which sounds totally insane, right?
I mean, I would love to be a rich, noble person, but it sounds totally insane. But this is a big part of how Xavier was raised. He literally thought that work was beneath him. It was actually shameful or embarrassing for him to try and go get a real job. And on top of that, his family was also very religious. They went to mass all the time. They never missed it.
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Chapter 5: How did Xavier’s upbringing influence his lifestyle and family dynamics?
But if you're imagining these hormonal teenagers, like, sneaking off to hook up, you got it all wrong. Because one of the things that Xavier really liked about her was that she was very devout. Like him, she had grown up Catholic. She believed in God. She also believed the second coming of Jesus, all of the things that he cared about as well.
She also had very traditional values, especially when it came to women submitting to men. And that was very important to Xavier, because remember, he liked being in charge. He liked having this girlfriend that he could boss around who wouldn't stand up to him, where he would just be the one who ran the show. Which I'm sure a lot of you are starting to see the red flags in this, right? I mean...
His need for control, his need to dominate, his privilege, all of these things. So they dated for about 10 years, and I don't know the exact date for when they started dating or when they exactly broke up, but I do know that around 1989 or 1990, Xavier decided that he now wanted to be single. He wanted to explore the world as a single guy, a single king, which...
cringe and from the sounds of it it sounds more like he just wanted the freedom to be able to hook up with whoever he wanted to all these different countries that he would go and visit so he basically told Agnes like hey see you later and I'm out I don't want to be with you anymore and he took off to the United States
Which that's got to be a little bit of a culture shock, because Xavier had spent his whole life thinking that he was going to be the future count, that he was special and better than everybody else. Then he went to the United States, this country that does not have nobility, where being born with a certain name doesn't really entitle you to any special respect.
I mean, at least not officially, but we know nepotism is like in full force here, right? So anyway, while he was in the States, he sort of re-evaluated his beliefs. He met some different businessmen who had made fortunes by actually working, and it started to get Xavier thinking that maybe he should get a job after all.
But he wasn't going to get a job at like your local restaurant or fast food chain, nothing like that, nothing with like heavy duty manual labor. He wanted more of a upscale job. He wanted to own his own company.
He wanted to dabble in investing, something that, you know, something like that, where he's not really getting his hands dirty, but he's still help his ego enough to tell people he has his own company or his own job. So then Xavier came back to France and he had this brand new perspective and a whole new way of seeing himself. He was now at this point, too, ready to settle down.
He was ready to marry Agnes and get a job. So imagine his shock when he has this whole plan ready to go. He's figured out his whole life, and so he calls Agnes, says he wants to be with her again, but he finds out that she's pregnant and the baby isn't his. Because as it turns out, he wasn't the only one who was sleeping around and hanging out with people during their time apart.
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Chapter 6: What financial and personal troubles was Xavier facing before the murders?
And in the meantime, he was still buying expensive cars, designer clothing, he sent his kids to a private school, he rented a big fancy house in the city. So even though he was only making 4000 euro a year, he was spending 10,000 euro every single month. And again, in today's dollars, that's about $19,000 a month. I mean, we I think we can all agree the math for sure doesn't matter. Right?
But from the sounds of things, he wasn't really worried about any of it. He wasn't thinking about how he was going to have to pay off these debts in the future. He was just spending, just living irresponsibly, just going from moment to moment.
And from what I can tell, I think part of it was also that he did not think that he would have any trouble paying it off when the time came because his father's health was getting worse by the day.
It's not like he wanted his father dead or anything like that, but I think he knew that once his dad passed, that he would inherit the title of count, and he would also inherit all of the family's wealth. So he just needed to hang on a little longer, and then all of his money problems would go away. And maybe this is why he allowed his dad back into his life with open arms.
Maybe it wasn't just the traditional values and wanting his dad to be there. Maybe it was because he knew that with his dad there, he would be able to kind of just step into his shoes whenever his dad got old enough and passed away. But it took his dad a while to finally pass away. And during that time, Xavier just went deeper and deeper into debt.
At one point, he even borrowed 50,000 euros from his mistress. Which today, that's like borrowing 95 grand from your mistress. That's
crazy which not only was this woman sleeping with a married man but she was giving him money giving him more money than people make in a year which I don't know how he had her under that spell maybe he was promising that she would be the countess one day that he was gonna of course have like 20 times that amount of money and he would give it back to her I don't know but sounds a little short-sighted if you're asking me
But even though that was a lot of money, all that cash still wasn't enough. He and his wife had to borrow even more money from some of their relatives, all just to try and keep their head above water. And this was not okay for Agnes. She hated having to beg her family for money, especially when it wasn't even necessary. Xavier could have just kept to a more modest budget.
He could have limited the spending, moved to a smaller apartment. sold some of his cars, bought cheaper clothing. But instead, he was trying to keep up the appearance of being this flashy, rich, wealthy guy. Meanwhile, she was completely humiliated because they were living beyond their means. So she and Xavier started fighting.
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Chapter 7: What was the state of the family’s finances after Xavier’s father passed away?
His two oldest sons, Thomas and Arthur, were away at college, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, but Agnes and the younger kids, Anne and Benoit, were all at church. People saw them. Afterward, the three of them met up with Xavier, and they all went out for pizza. Sometime during the day, Arthur and Thomas came over as well, and the whole family was together until about 5 p.m.
Then, Xavier went and met up with a friend to go run some errands. Thomas also had some other commitments that evening, so he told everybody goodbye, he left, and he went back to campus. Xavier got home within the next hour, and he went out to dinner with everybody except Thomas, who was already gone by that point heading back to campus.
And later, witnesses from that restaurant said that the family just seemed unusually happy. They were laughing, they were drinking, they were having a great time. They even spent a few hours at this restaurant. They didn't get home until like 10 p.m. And then, at around 10.30 p.m., Xavier called his sister Christine. Now, once again, he sounded like he was in a really good mood.
I mean, nothing about this conversation set off any sort of alarm bells for Christine. But there was one thing that stood out to her as odd, not a red flag, just a little bit off. Because when it was time to hang up, Xavier said that he had to go put his children to bed. But his youngest son, Benoit, was 13 years old, and Anne was 16 years old.
Arthur was a grown adult, 21 years old, so none of them were little kids or little enough to need to be put to bed, right? So in Christine's mind, she was like, okay, that kind of sounds weird.
She didn't think that her brother was actually literally putting his teenage and adult children to sleep, but she thought, okay, maybe he's just going to be sweet with them, say goodnight to them, and that's what he means. So it stood out a little bit, but not any way to make anything of it. So she just said goodnight and hung up and didn't think twice about it.
But as for what happened after all of that, it's really anybody's guess. We know that sometime between that night, the 3rd, and the 21st, when the bodies were found, that someone shot each member of the family twice in the head, ultimately killing them.
They also were able to find out that Agnes slept with a special sleep apnea machine, something that helped her breathe during her sleep, and the machine was abruptly shut off at 3 a.m. on the morning of the 4th. She also usually took sleeping pills to help her sleep, but when her autopsy came back and the tox report, it didn't show that there were any drugs in her system. However...
the four children, had all been dosed with her prescription, with their mother's sleeping pills. So based on all of that, the police had a rough theory about how things played out that night.
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