The previous thread was overloading WordPress due to the number of comments. This thread has been opened to replace it.
Allowed HTML - you can use:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
James
Not so much a low attendance, rather a low number of invitations issued.
From memory, at least one of his brothers was not invited, he even publicly complained about his exclusion in a press interview.
It could easily be a strong desire for privacy and to avoid it being turned into a public spectacle.
There are other possible reasons. People get together and talk, old stories best forgotton are retold. Dogs that should be left sleeping, are disturbed.
And that is just before the wake…
Sadly, Peter, I am familiar with certain ME procedures pertaining to suspicious death. In some jurisdictions, the ME is in complete control of such cases. The families have no say about whether an autopsy is done or not. They can chose to pay for a private autopsy afyer the ME releases the remains, but the ME makes no attempt to inform them of this right. ME-ordered autopsies are paid by the state, but the ME can choose only to do an external investigation.
The ME has a team of investigators who do go to the victim’s home to conduct their investigation. These investigators are not police. They have the power to seal the victim’s home until their investigation is complete. They may include police in their investigations. ME investigations may take six months or more. A home can be sealed off for as needed. Toxicology tests can be extensive and long to process. There are backlogs and family members can do nothing but wait.
But that is on this side of the pond.
I do not think anything suspicious was found in the case of JT. What is deemed suspicious death can later be proven by the ME to have rather mundane causes. Given the lack of disinterment, JT’s family must have decided they needed no further explanation of his death, or that nothing further could be learned.
@Peter: In some jurisdictions, sudden deaths are treated as suspicious deaths when they occur under specific circumstances. Using this example, Jim’s sudden death could be considered a suspicious death until the ME rules otherwise because it occurred outside of a hospital, he was not known to be suffering from a terminal illness nor was he being treated for one, the death was unexpected, he died in a public place, etc. In some jurisdictions, one in five deaths, although not all suspicious, are investigated by the ME. All motor vehicle accident deaths automatically include toxicology tests in such places.
To answer another question, toxicology samples are taken at autopsy or ME external examination, but they may be kept in the lab for months before they are actually tested. Testing in criminal cases takes priority over other types of investigation. Delays can come from backups at the lab, rather than complexity of the tests.
@James: Deceased persons have no human rights
SM was hit by a vehicle. That automatically means toxicology testing in some jurisdictions, because all deaths involving motor vehicle accidents result in tox testing in some jurisdictions. It doesn’t mean he was suspected of taking something.
I think there may be an obvious reason for the oddness of SM’s funeral arrangements.
What if the remains were released to the family for the funeral service, but returned to the morgue because the local funeral homes could not or would not cremate them? Funeral directors have guidelines to follow with cases that require special handling. They are not obliged to do take these types of disposals. This leaves the question of whether SM’s remains required special handling for some reason such as contamination or contagion. And if so, what? If the family could not find a funeral home willing to provide this service, the ME would have to step in. This could mean either providing information to the funeral director, or going further afield to find someone to provide this service. Bodies must be properly disposed. What are families to do when this happens?
Perhaps as Sylvain Mollier ( was supposed to have been)
a NUCLEAR FUEL worker for two decades, it was thought a good idea to check for NUCLEAR contamination of his body?
Maybe toxicology testing happens to all workers in the nuclear game?
Maybe EDF/AREVA/CEZUS
Pay for the cremation
@ Q, 27 Jan, 2016 – 11:54 pm
The ME has a team of investigators who do go to the victim’s home to conduct their investigation. These investigators are not police. They have the power to seal the victim’s home until their investigation is complete. They may include police in their investigations. ME investigations may take six months or more. A home can be sealed off for as needed.
Wow. Where is that, Canada? Admittedly, my own knowledge of the US system is second-hand, from a pathologist who did a stint in Washington in order to familiarise himself with gunshot trauma. According to him, the system there is just as sloppy as ours.
@ Q, 28 Jan, 2016 – 1:01 am
I think there may be an obvious reason for the oddness of SM’s funeral arrangements. What if the remains were released to the family for the funeral service, but returned to the morgue because the local funeral homes could not or would not cremate them?
Excellent thinking and a very, very important point! I am convinced that you have solved two riddles in one stroke there: the riddle of SM’s funeral arrangements and the question why Areva-Cezus would retain a lawyer in order to keep a lid on the murder investigation. If excessive levels of toxic metallic substances were found in SM’s body, that would explain why the funeral home would refuse to cremate him: the temperatures that these ovens reach are not high enough to destroy metallic substances (unlike organic substances), hence these substances are set free during cremation. Few crematoriums would have the requisite filters to capture those substances.
Likewise, excessive levels of toxic metallic substances in SM’s body would point to shoddy workplace safety practices and systems at Areva-Cezus, potentially opening the doors to a multitude of employer liability suits from SM’s former workmates. No wonder Areva-Cezus are not keen on that!
Finally, it may have been Areva-Cezus themselves who pushed for SM to be cremated (in a suitable crematorium). Unlike organic toxins, metallic toxins last pretty much forever, meaning that the body of a conventionally interred SM would have started polluting the local groundwater once his coffin had disintegrated. By the same token, even several hundred years from now, an exhumation could have shown that his body had been contaminated with toxic metals. Once his former workmates start falling ill en masse a few years down the line, they might have pushed for SM’s body to be disinterred and tested for contamination with metallic compounds.
Another thought: That very generous deal that SM had struck with Areva-Cezus over his paternity leave may not have been entirely motivated by paternalistic largesse on the part of his employers.
I don’t know about Areva-Cezus specifically, but it is common practice for workers handling toxic metals to be regularly tested for exposure levels. What if his readings were dangerously high during the last round of tests? The company medic would have advised him to avoid any further exposure and would probably have recommended taking a few years off in order to allow the contaminants to work their way through his system (depending on what they were). Likewise, high exposure levels would have given SM a lot of bargaining power vis-à-vis his employers. French trade unions being what they are, he could have caused a lot of trouble … and that circumstance might even have been the motive for someone to silence him.
And yet another thought: If this hypothesis that SM had excessively high exposure levels to toxic metals be true, he may not only have been granted the paternity leave that he was theoretically entitled to in law anyway, but also been given a big wad of cash. Perhaps that expensive racing bike was not a gift from CS at all, but rather something that he treated himself to from his hush money?
To continue my soliloquy: killing a bunch of random strangers as well as the intended victim in order to obfuscate the true motive for a murder is Agatha Christie territory. However, if, as a murderer, you know that the intended victim is contaminated up to his hair tips with toxic metals and that this circumstance will definitely be picked up on during an autopsy, a lot of misdirection is called for.
Otherwise, the case would be all-too-clear: the victim only has a few years left to live; his premature natural death will cause an almighty stink, probably lead to the bankruptcy of his employers and put half the town out of work. That is such a powerful, obvious motive for a lot of local actors (both on the employer and employee side) that a huge amount of misdirection is called for in order to muddy the waters.
James, Cremations are growing in popluarity in France, still not on the scale of the UK.
Here is a list:
http://www.afif.asso.fr/francais/conseils/conseil17a.html#CHAMBÉRY
Chambery is the only one in Savoie and there are just three in Haute Savoie and the cost:
TARIFS 2012
Crémations
Cercueil adulte 573,81 €
Cercueil enfant (moins de 10 ans) 200,53 €
Enfant né sans vie 125,91 €
Crémation d’ossements (reliquaire inférieur à 1,30 m) 374,37 €
“Seule la famille et les proches avaient été informés, dans la discrétion la plus absolue. Une exigence indispensable pour ne pas attirer la horde de médias qui avait suivi le drame. Pour se recueillir et débuter le deuil, tout simplement. L’inhumation du corps reste en revanche à confirmer. L’enquête étant toujours en cours, la famille n’a pas obtenu l’autorisation d’incinération, comme elle le souhaitait. Des funérailles célébrées un dimanche soir. Le fait est peu commun, pour une histoire, elle aussi, peu commune.”
Only family and closest had been informed, in the most absolute discretion. An essential requirement to avoid attracting the media that followed the drama. It was to simply gather and begin mourning. However, the burial of the body remains to be confirmed. The investigation is ongoing, the family did not get the cremation authorization, as it wished. The funeral was celebrated on a Sunday evening. It is unusual, as is the story.
From Le Dauphine, the temporary burial was mentioned in Le Parisien. It is as they say ‘to begin mourning’.
MN, have a re-read of Wiki and even you will spot many errors ! Maybe someone would like to update.
Maillaud confirmed 17 bullets hit humans, the British Coroners Inquest stated the number into the family, plus at least one hiting Zainab, that leaves 5.
Google Sylvain Mollier + bullets and you will find it was 5. I leave you with your thoughts.
And finally, as I recall Roger Mollier was also cremated, it still isn’t the norm here, until recently, last two years, a body would have had to be taken to the nearest crem, over an hours drive away, the new one nearby, which I drive past when going to the Hypermarche rarely has any cars there and never a queue, unlike the one I attended in Chatham last year.
They are public property.
Peter, how could the murderer be sure a nice British family would turn up at the opportune moment, unless they were directed there after having their photo taken in the valley below ……
@ M., 28 Jan, 2016 – 10:49 am
If the not-so-nice AH family were mere distractions, the killer certainly struck gold with them. However, any old random passer-by would have served the purpose, simply the next person(s) to appear upon the scene after SM had been shot. Establishing the time of death is such an inexact science that the murderer could have waited up to an hour for somebody to show up after killing SM.
Anyway, I rather like my new hypothesis. It certainly explains the local “wall of silence” – everybody in and around Ugine must know at least one person working in that factory complex, and those persons would probably lose their jobs if SM had been contaminated and this circumstance became public knowledge. Likewise, I cannot imagine Eric Clouseau knowingly shielding a local suspect, but I can very well see him covering up for a state-owned company that is a major local employer.
Peter
As I recall, the idea of SM having a cancer due to his work was discussed previously, similar to your hypothesis.
If this was carried out by Areva, I would have thought a far more sophisticated method could have been used and not relied on chance, just push him off his bike and down the side, maybe. Although, the old gun, leaving cartridges would in essence be sophisticated if it was meant to confuse. The killer imported in.
With regard to money, he may well have offered himself the bike, chances are there was a bit of money in the pot after his Dads death.
Which media first introduced CS had offered him the bike ?
Peter, do you really think Maillaud alone would be able to instigate such a huge cover-up ?
What about all the forensic people, the sapeur-pompiers, the Gendarmes including Vinneman, the list is endless.
@ M
I’m no toxicologist, but I think that it is safe to say that: 1. Zirconium, hafnium and titanium are generally considered not to be very toxic, but the data are sparse. 2. Those establishments that possess the most information on their toxicity, e. g., Areva-Cezus, have an incentive to downplay the risks and withhold data from the scientific community. 3. SM was in the highest-risk group imaginable, because, as a welder, he would have been exposed to fumes as well as dust. 4. Regardless of their actual toxicity, there are permissible maximum workplace concentrations for these substances. If SM had been found to have huge blood concentrations of any of these substances, Cezus-Areva would have been in deep trouble.
In my hypothesis, the decision to bump off SM need not have been taken by Areva’s chairman of the board 😉 It could have been SM’s team leader, shift manager, health & safety executive, production manager, even his colleagues – anybody who had reason to fear that they might lose their livelihood over this.
If there is a cover-up regarding SM’s state of health, the circle of people in the know could be quite small: the pathologist(s) who examined SM’s body, somebody who conducted the relevant toxicological tests, the group of gendarmes initially tasked with following up the SM piste, plus Maillaud. Later, this circle would have expanded to include the (local) management at Cezus, who in turn would have offered to “take care” of the family in exchange for a vow of silence.
If Sylvain Mollier was a welder for two decades,
( remember he was first described as a metallurgist)
Peter is correct, he would have had a build up of heavy metals in his body,
this would likely have shortened his life.
Also remember that Claire Schutz has claimed that Sylvain did not work for Cezus.
I still think the most likely slaughter victims were Sylvain Mollier and at least one of the al-Hilli group.
It would be too fantastical to imagine all the victims were lost/accidental.
This was a mass assassination and one of the intended victims was Sylvain Mollier.
EDF has debts thirty seven billion euros.
The share price has dropped by half over the last twelve months.
They have not signed the contract this week, as expected, for Hinkley Point C.
The worker-shareholders, do not want the English project to go forward as they believe this will be the last nail in their coffin.
@Peter: ME powers vary greatly from place to place. Where I am, their power is considerable.
However, this is a field that is fraught with controversy from top to bottom. If you’re outside a large urban centre, in some places the local coroner may be a GP with a bit of extra training — not well-qualified, and sometimes legally proven in court to have jumped to erroneous conclusions. Big centres have had major problems too, with a number of firings due to resume padding, staff taking property seized for investigations (a gun, in one case) and political interference in the ME’s realm of authority. The ME here does all autopsies in a central location. Bodies are transported and returned to the town or city of death without cost to the families. I’m not sure how much faith anyone has in these ME investigations. Also, it seems the ME’s office is underfunded and has severe backlogs during times like a drug/gang war. Grieving families face unreasonable delays. These delays prevent settlement of estates, insurance claims, etc.
Different types of ME reports are available to families. Not sure how it works in France, but the ME reports are made available to families irrespective of whether the police want the information released or not. Police investigations are separate from ME reports. The ME has a legal duty to provide their reports to the survivors, although there is a fee attached. There is the basic death certificate, autopsy or external exam findings, including cause of death and manner of death, and toxicology reports if this was done. Families can choose to release this information to the insurance company, lawyer, etc., but the ME will not release the info to anyone other than police without written authorization. Insurers may or may not require a basic report or one of the more detailed reports. Families are advised to contact a lawyer for advice before providing any information to third parties.
So, insurance provided by an employer of a deceased may or may not give the insurer (thereby the employer) the right to certain information to settle the claim. This is why a lawyer is necessary. Insurers are sometimes known to make claimants jump through hoops, or to try to disqualify valid claims.
Anyways, about toxicology testing. The ME here does talk directly to family members, to try to get a sense of what was going on in the person’s life at the time of death. Maybe the investigators do, too. If a family member mentioned some sort of health problem from a contamination issue, the ME would look for this in tox tests. The ME can decide to test for other things as deemed appropriate by them.
Funeral directors have concerns not just about contaminating the air if a toxic substance is involved or suspected. There are health and safety issues for their workers, and possible damage to equipment (think overheating), etc. Contamination by radiation would be something no funeral director would want to take on, I would imagine.
BTW, the ME here can also decide whether or not a family can view the body of their loved one. For this reason alone a family with strong feelings about this may need a lawyer to plead their views. Some people find it very difficult to process grief unless they view the body.
@Peter: It is not just work-related exposures to harmful chemicals and radiation that might show up (and yes, welders are known to be vulnerable to a number of job-related illnesses, including cancer). I found this article about random testing of nuclear workers for alcohol, drugs, and performance-enhancing substances:
http://www.ohscanada.com/health-safety/nuclear-regulator-considers-random-drug-testing-policy/1001119117/
I don’t think unions would like this kind of thing.
Could a person conceal an addiction if they took employer-paid leave? Surely they’d need medical reports.
Conversely, if a worker had taken sick leave and nothing was found that shouldn’t be there via autopsy and toxicology testing, that might invalidate an insurance claim? I don’t know.
What are the French Occupational Health and Safety rules for testing nuclear workers for nuclear exposure?
What are the French laws concerning autopsies and postmortem testing for workers in the nuclear industry? Are there any, or is that decision left to the medical examiner?
Are there any OHS testing requirements for welders who have regular exposure to chemical, nuclear and other substances?
Are there laws in France that state that people who die from certain causes must be cremated? What are those causes? Remembering that back in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, disposal of bodies became a big issue.
Is cremation/burial in France a choice divided along religious lines? Certain cultures and religions do not bury their dead, and in certain religions, family members must attend the actual cremation.
In other countries where there is less of a stigma attached to cremation, the choice often comes down to money. Cremation is much less expensive.
Has SM’s religion been made public? It certainly was a big issue on the al-Hilli side of the equation.
The handling of the al-Hillis’ remains was necessarily quite different, due to transportation, and transportation across borders.
What kind of post-mortem testing was done for the family, and how does the type of testing compare to SM? If only we knew.
Peter
Equation shows that large-scale conspiracies would quickly reveal themselves
I estimate that a post-hoc cover-up of a corporate or personal ’embarassment’ could involve a small enough number of people to remain covert.
Any such issue need have no bearing on the tragedy itself but was simply something revealed by the autopsy and associated investigation.
My best guess, from the corporate angle, would be long term cumulative UV eye damage from his welding work.
Another possibility could be that, as an experienced welder, he was selected to make up test pieces for the research lab and maybe assess the ‘weldability’ of newly developed alloys.
It would only take a mix-up involving, for example, beryllium for long term damage to be caused. It is possible, but unlikely, that radioactive material is involved.
As to any personal ’embarassment’ that may have been revealed by the autopsy or investigative process, I shall try not to speculate unless a causal link to the murders is involved.
@ Good In Parts, 28 Jan, 2016 – 5:45 pm
Yes, it may well have been a mere “embarrassment”, sufficiently discomfiting to make Areva-CEZUS try to hush it up after SM’s death by retaining a lawyer, bribing the family and leaning on their employees and thereby also the wider community, but insufficient to constitute a motive for murder. Still, it is a plausible explanation why the family and the local community have clammed up, why Areva-Cezus are paying that lawyer, why the funeral arrangements for SM were so weird … Upon further reflection, it might even explain a few other oddities, for example why CS became worried so quickly about SM not returning home from his bike ride. Did she fear that he had dropped dead off his bike for quite different reasons?
I should have seen it all along. In hindsight, the notion that the Schutz family could be sufficiently powerful to intimidate the entire community into silence is ludicrous. Conversely, it is all too easy to see how a state-owned corporation that is the biggest local employer and probably also the biggest local tax payer could accomplish that. Their reach would even extend up to the ministerial level and, from there, back down to the level of someone like Eric Clouseau.
Speculating further on the potential nature of that “embarrassment”, it seems unlikely that anything they do at Areva-CEZUS has to do with radioactive materials
http://www.areva.com/EN/operations-917/cezus-ugine-activities-melting-and-forging.html
However, apart from the metals that they smelt, refine and process there, the workers will regularly come into contact with solvents for degreasing metals as well as “pickling” acids for removing surface oxidations. Those pickling acids could be quite dangerous, particularly if their fumes were inhaled, and a welder would regularly come into contact with them, perhaps whilst wearing less/different protective gear than other workers (welding goggles rather than a gas mask).
http://www.areva.com/FR/activites-917/activits-ugine-fusion-et-forgeage.html?mediaDetail=1181
Go to page 11.
MN, you are assuming SHE gave the information, which I doubt, as she has never given an interview to the Press, it was very quickly changed.
Did someone in the Press find out Roger worked at Ugitech and was told his son worked at the same site ? Which of course in principal he did.
That obviously doesn’t make sense of the obit quoted in TP’s book, on the basis that I can’t find any trace of this, then I wonder if he has made an error.
http://www.velo101.com/forum/voirsujet/repose-en-paix-sylvain-mollier–17095
Look at the time, if genuine it means the listing was made within hours of his death for it to appear in the ‘newspaper’ on the 6th or 7th September, there is no record of this.
This appeared in a publication dated the 18th September:
http://www.libramemoria.com/avis/le-dauphine/savoie/2012/09/18/avis-sylvain-mollier?Page=3
I conclude TP is at fault, maybe he would like to clarify ? Afterall he confuses the campsites, making the man at Solitaire tap the bonnet of the car during an animated conversation transport himself backwards in time to Europa.
The first reporting is dated the 5th September updated on the 6th,
“Ce cycliste s’apellait Sylvain Mollier. Il s’agit d’un père de famille né en 1967, amateur de vélo, qui avait décidé de «tester un nouvel itinéraire» mercredi, selon son épouse citée par le procureur. ”
The detail of where he worked was given by Le Dauphine Libere:
” D’après le Dauphiné Libéré, il s’agit d’un employé d’Ugitech, en congé parental, parti en promenade faire du vélo.”
ACCORDING to ……. so not exactly confirmed, I’ve had plenty of time to look at all these elements.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganism
This is just one of many conditions known to be an occupational hazard for welders.
In parkinsonism, people often find that they can run but they struggle to walk. They might also find it easier to ride a bike at breakneck speed, but not to stay balanced at low speeds. Fast walking is a therapy used by some.
Whether or not extended exposure to manganese causes birth defects? Probably hard to prove.
Old foundries can be contaminated sites after many years of metal processing. Sometimes the contamination goes further, washed into neighboring properties, rivers and streams.
If there is a big issue, that could be it.
Remediation and reclamation of contaminated foundry sites can be extremely expensive, and often falls on governments, both local and federal. When contamination is discovered, many companies in the past have shut down, leaving not only a costly mess, but workers with no jobs. Towns and cities have a double whammy when this happens: fewer residents to pay taxes, and higher taxes needed to clean up.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugitech
Immigrants Italians
The Italians are the most numerous and oldest installed. In 1932, they represent more than half of the foreign contingent (55.7%) Italy 1118 for a total of 2006 foreigners. The choice of Ugine is explained by the proximity to Italy and the fact of favorable working and living conditions. The vast majority of these workers come from the Piedmont but also from different regions of Italy: Lombardy, Veneto, Valle d’Aosta, Turin, Novara, Rome and Calabria. They flee Italy where they are condemned to a certain unemployment. Although they are returned to Italy in small group after the war, in 1970 statistics dénombrent in 540. In fact, there are many Italians who have acquired French nationality and enjoying the benefits granted to French. Less “uprooted” as some other people, they are now considered full-fledged Uginois. They are now well accepted in their adopted city, this development being favored by the dispersion and relative seniority of their installation in Ugine.
So, perhaps the family Menegaldo arrived from Italy to work for Ugitech?
There’s probably no catchy name for a “toxic tort” in French civil law.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps ….
Is it relevant ?
At origin by name only, the ex was a Sclosa. Her real name is Lydia and her father is Oreste.
http://annuaire.118712.fr/ppart/Savoie-73/Ugine-73400/Sclosa_oreste-0479373982_0O0000L00004D10500C70760S
Give the old man a call and ask him if the Italians did it, he must be involved, he only lives a short distance from ‘piste cyclable’ ! Oh my, old man, old gun, solved !
MN, have fun !
http://www.genealogie.com/recherche-genealogique/nom-MENEGALDO.html