The Monk Mistaken for a Monster: The Most-Wanted Murderer in France
Xavier DuPont de Ligonnès is a handsome French aristocrat suspected in the brutal murders of his wife, four children and the family dogs. He's a devout Catholic—but not a friar.
CANNES, France—The monk who answered the phone at the isolated monastery sounded shaken.
It’s not every day that more than 20 police officers searching for France’s most wanted man descend on a corner of the Riviera’s hinterlands where monks live in silence and solitude.
But that was the Dan-Brown-like twist last week when detectives swarmed the Monastère Notre-Dame-de-Pitié looking for the notorious Xavier DuPont de Ligonnès, the handsome French aristocrat and devout Catholic suspected in the brutal murders of his wife, four children and the family dogs in Nantes, France, in April 2011.