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8,072 thoughts on “Not Forgetting the al-Hillis continued

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  • Peter

    @ Mr Juicy
    Well put, well argued. I would add that Maillaud may have backtracked from his statement that Menegaldo was “le suspect numéro un” because he feared that Menegaldo’s relatives would be hounded by irate villagers with torches and pitchforks. The man is no fool; he must have realised that he had gone too far with that statement.

  • Shelock

    Worth to re-read:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2689398/Was-Alps-massacre-wife-REAL-target-This-week-emerged-secret-husband-died-SAME-DAY-murdered-Now-Mails-uncovered-drastic-new-evidence.html

    According to JT’s sister JW “he spoon fooded her when he was cooking”. Later it is written that he “adored her”. To me that doesn’t sound like a marriage just to help her out to get a green card.
    Who knows what was going on nights behind closed doors ???
    Sometimes those things happen unexpectedly, I mean from ordinary friendship to big feelings…

    JT used to be a policeman?? That could mean a lot….
    Could we connect him in any way with PM?
    Just loud thinking….
    if
    @Pink
    IAH had asked him to help her to get out of Uk WITH

  • Shelock

    sorry, that went out too fast

    .. to get out of the UK (with or without her kids)

    As Meatloaf sings: I’d do anything for love

  • Shelock

    @ MN:

    NDLR- I read it as : note de da redaction

    as the sister only says “Silvain” and it is written in brackets

    Would makes sense

  • Peter

    @ Mr Juicy

    How do you interpret the statement by his sister that Menegaldo was “très mal supporté” at the time of his interrogation? I take it to mean that he was interviewed without a lawyer present, and that the gendarmes really laid into him on that occasion. Do you agree?

    I consider it wholly unconceivable that someone under garde a vue would be interrogated for a mere 45 minutes. Even if he did not say a single word, or merely parrot-like demanded that a lawyer be present, there is absolutely no way that police would let a viable suspect go after 45 minutes.

    Thus, I feel justified in concluding that there must have been (at least) two interrogations of Menegaldo: a lengthy, tough one without a lawyer present, followed by a nice, polite 45-minute one during which his lawyer was present and politely told the gendarmes where to get off.

  • Shelock

    and for Peter:

    I wonder if there had been just 7 pages or even more?
    Who wants to know what was written “just for family” and what for “public” ???

    Some kind of ‘family-care’

  • Mr Juicy

    @ Peter

    Your point about “très mal supporté” hadn’t occurred to me but it’s a very good observation and I fully agree with you.

    Similarly your para 2.

    And your conclusion in your para 3 makes complete sense too. Whatever the precise police interaction with Patrice was, it was far more than what Maillaud claimed to Parry, IMHO. His sister, motivated by love and loyalty, has let the cat out of the bag, it seems to me.

  • Peter

    Speculating, I would reconstruct events as follows: Menegaldo was initially interviewed as a potential witness, without a lawyer present. His account doesn’t add up, the gendarmes become suspicious, interrogate him harshly, he talks too much for his own good and ends up being placed under garde a vue as a suspect. He laywers up and that interview, with a lawyer present after he had been placed under GAV, was a polite 45-minute affair.

  • Shelock

    @ Peter

    As I get it, the late PM had a lawyer.
    I guess, just in case of a pure and innocent suicide nobody needs a lawyer

  • Mr Juicy

    @ Shelock

    He wrote separate letters to his mother, sister and nephew, I’m guessing probably about two pages each, totalling 7 pages, as previously reported.

  • Mr Juicy

    @ Peter

    However you slice and dice it, the account given to Parry by Monsieur Maillaud was “economical with the truth” n’est-ce pas?

  • Peter

    @ Shelock & Mr Juicy

    I can only reiterate: consider the likely fate of the Menegaldo family if Patrice were to be identified as the killer. Even now, his sister reports that people in Ugine have started giving them funny looks again.

    We don’t know whether PM is guilty or innocent. Thus far, the gendarmes appear to have found nothing substantive to tie him to the murders, or so we are led to believe. However, his family have a vital interest in maintaining that presumption of innocence. “Love and loyalty” may play a part in it, but their own lives are negatively affected by this cloud of suspicion. Thus, I can see why they would hire a lawyer even if they themselves were utterly certain of Patrice’s innocence.

  • M.

    It was the La Savoie Press article where it was written , two hours in April 2013, Maillaud in the book it becomes 45 minutes and here 2012:

    “Néanmoins, aucun élément tangible n’accuserait pour l’instant Patrice Menegaldo. Selon les informations de France 2, son ADN ne se trouvait pas sur la scène du crime et son interrogatoire, en 2012, s’était déroulé sans encombres.”

    Maybe as Peter says he was interviewed twice.

    Listening to Christelle, she is now suffering from the same ill regard as her brother received, stated from a friend after this article was published:

    http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2015/05/26/la-piste-de-l-ancien-legionnaire-toujours-suivie

    c etait terrible et un copain s est suicide parcequ il na pas supporte le regard et le comerage des autres apres son interrogatoire par la gendarmerie et maintenant on en remet une couche je pense a sa famille

  • Pink

    No I am not thinking of anyone just pondering how to get a circle of people known to each other that might have caused JT’s stress.
    The obvious one would be real estate I know from past posts that the JT has family in real estate .
    The Maestros supposedly had visitors with “Washington plates” not sure if that fits in anywhere other than they still had contact with people from the states .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Mastro

    This story came along when I was searching .
    http://news10.com/2015/04/18/maestros-former-co-owner-and-chef-arrested-for-allegedly-stealing-from-the-restaurant/

    @Good In Parts
    23 Jun, 2015 – 7:40 am

  • M.

    Bacchus, doubtful, there are other Menegaldos in the region, could be cousins, his friend only mentions ‘jeune neveu’.

    I think we need to be careful to attribute guilt where as far as we know there is none.

    Peter is correct in his assessment, piano, piano.

  • Good In Parts

    Pink

    I might bave misinterpreted the article you linked to, but it may refer to a restaurant in or near Saratoga NY.

  • Peter

    Owing to the paucity of publicly available information on him, it is impossible to get a reading of Menegaldo’s personality. If we assume that he was really suffering from psychological issues, for whatever reason, it is easy to see how he could have become yet another innocent victim of this tragedy. With “psychological issues”, I don’t mean some bottled-up trauma, but overt issues that would be quite obvious to anybody who talked to him for a few minutes.

    Imagine a person like that being interrogated by the gendarmerie. He would immediately come across as odd, and anything odd is always suspicious. Thus, they lean a bit harder upon him, and he reacts in an even odder way. They lean even harder upon him, he becomes even more distressed – until they ultimately decide to charge him, because he fits their profile (or rather, one of their profiles) so perfectly: a psychiatric patient with good shooting skills and combat experience. His lawyer gets him released almost at once, because he has a solid alibi. That should have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t. In a small community like Ugine, word gets around quickly. This time, the word is that Menegaldo, previously regarded as the friendly neighbourhood nutter, somebody whom you wouldn’t get on the wrong side of when in his cups but otherwise perfectly pleasant, was a suspect for the murders, but that the gendarmes did not have enough evidence to make the charges stick. From that day onwards, local people cross the street when they saw him approaching. The rumours never stop. Being ostracised in a small community like that must be hellish. After about a year of this, he can take it no more and commits suicide, leaving behind a number of letters to his nearest and dearest that would clear up matters once and for all, dispel any lingering doubts about his innocence that even they might have felt at some point.

    That is one reading of the situation. There are others, but it is my preferred one for the moment, until fresh information is forthcoming, which I hope it will.

  • Mr Juicy

    Shelock is right: we are speculating, or let’s say, suggesting theories based on known facts, the application of logic, and a fair sprinkling of assumptions. Given that the object of our theorizing is to identify the person(s) responsible for murder, it would be strange and surprising, and perhaps not particularly useful, if our theories did not point clearly in one direction or another.

    It seems that some here have lost their appetite for this process, because of concern about the vulnerabilities of those who may be affected by it. It’s true that Patrice Menegaldo cannot defend himself from beyond the grave, but if (@ Peter) “people in Ugine have started giving (the family) funny looks again,” this is surely not due to any views expressed on this site, which is unlikely to exert much, if any, influence on the citizens of Ugine.

    But concern about the vulnerabilities of those directly affected by our theorizing should apply evenly and consistently across the board. I very much hope that the Menegaldo family does not read what is written in weblogs about Patrice, who is innocent until proven guilty. But I also hope, just as fervently, that the Al Hilli daughters never get to read weblog speculation that (for example) their father may have plotted a suicide / murder of himself and his wife and mother-in-law; or that their parents were not legally married and that they, the daughters, are therefore illegitimate.

    My own view is that there is a way out of this moral maze: as long as our speculation and theorizing (not all of which will be right, and some of which will be wildly wide of the mark) are part of a sincere and genuine attempt to get at the truth (and to hold the authorities to account when necessary) then it has a higher purpose and can be justified. Personally, I would always prefer to be proven right than wrong, but much more than that, my overriding wish is the truth will come out in the end.

  • michael norton

    Five times I’ve been round the very small town of Ugine and I can not spot the apartment block of Patrice, it is a very distinctive pale blue stripped building next to a pale pink striped building, do you think it is not in Ugine?

  • Mr Juicy

    @ Peter 23 Jun, 2015 – 4:35 pm

    These are fair points. But his sister denies that he had psychological issues, describing him as “balanced and leading a respectable life”, although later in the interview she speculates that “something must have snapped” as a result of his encounter with the gendarmes.

    As far as I know, he was not ostracised in the period between his “interrogation” and his suicide. But if tongues were beginning to wag, was this solely because people knew that the had been questioned, or did they know other things, which have not come to light?

    The other curious thing is that, if we are to believe the 2012 account quoted above, he was safely off the hook:

    “Aucun élément tangible n’accuserait pour l’instant Patrice Menegaldo… Son ADN ne se trouvait pas sur la scène du crime et son interrogatoire, en 2012, s’était déroulé sans encombres.”

    On top of that, he had a good alibi, apparently.

    Given all this, and given the abundance of alternative theories pointing across the Channel, it would be surprising if the local community had much time for suspicions that Patrice could be involved, unless there were other questions, lurking beneath the waterline…

    All this is speculation, of course, without attribution of guilt.

  • Pink

    @Good in Parts
    Yes you are right nothing to do with anything just the same name I didn’t check it popped up on the search I was looking for some old newspaper articles.

  • Peter

    @ Mr Juicy, 23 Jun, 2015 – 5:17 pm

    As I understood it, his sister merely denied that he had psychological issues because of his time in the army, not that he had no psychological issues at all. Her emphasis on him being balanced at the time and on the police interview snapping his supporting cord rather suggest the opposite of a man in robust mental health.

    The ostracism that I referred to stems from M.’s comment @ 23 Jun, 2015 – 11:48 am.
    c etait terrible et un copain s est suicide parcequ il na pas supporte le regard et le comerage des autres apres son interrogatoire par la gendarmerie et maintenant on en remet une couche je pense a sa famille
    An anonymous source, to be sure, but it has the ring of authenticity about it.

    Be that as it may, I don’t care about being proved right, as I must have espoused just about every theory about these murders at some point, I just want this case to be solved. However trivial and retroactively facepalm-inducing (“How could we have overlooked this all along?”) the solution may be, I just want an answer. As of now, some aspects about Menegaldo arouse suspicion, not least his weird suicide notes, but the picture needs filling in insofar as the basics are concerned, i. e., what he might have been doing there up at the Martinet on the day, what his exact relationship with SM was, why he might have wanted to kill the AHs and so forth. I hope that further information will be forthcoming shortly, now that his sister has started talking to the media.

  • michael norton

    I am sure that if “The Family ” of Sylvain Mollier were so keen to get their point of view across, they could get “Their Lawyers” to edit Wiki
    to announce a different place of work for Sylvain?

  • michael norton

    If Eric Maillaud is to solve this crime,
    there are some extremely basic facts, he should try to clear up.

    1)Where and for whom did Sylvain Mollier work, what were his duties.
    Did he also have secondary employment.
    2)On the fatal day from where did Sylvain depart.
    3)Did he call Claire Schutz to come home from her business to look after their infant son, so Sylvain could go out on important business.
    4)Was this unusual.
    5)Did he leave in a vehicle with a cycle
    or on a cycle or just in a vehicle without a cycle.
    6)Which cycle was found at Le Martinet
    7) Was he carrying a gun
    8) Was he carrying a large sum of cash

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