The Tourist

In the middle of the night while returning home from a camping holiday with his two young sons, a father is gunned down in a violent execution-style murder at a quiet rest area. Evidence of a ruthless assassin emerges, but resolution evades law enforcement in two separate countries.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Hi, park enthusiasts. It's Delia. If you listen to Park Predators, you already know that sometimes the most beautiful places can hide the darkest secrets. But what happens when the danger isn't miles from civilization? It's in your community, and sometimes even in your own backyard. On Crime Junkie, hosts Ashley and Britt dive into real cases every week, from missing persons to unsolved murders, breaking down what we know, what we don't, and the details that still don't sit right. If you care about the stories behind the headlines and the victims at the center of them, you'll want to check out Crime Junkie. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia Deambra. And the story I'm going to tell you today is one of those cases that has literally been in the back of my mind for years. I first came across it while researching a previous two-part episode of Park Predators titled "The Shootings." In this episode, I'm diving into another mind-boggling case from the French countryside. The two investigations involve different victims, different locations, and different agencies, but there's an all-too-familiar theme. A lone shooter emerges from seemingly nowhere, guns down innocent tourists on a scenic roadway, and has no problem doing so in front of young children. Because these crimes are so similar, there's even been some speculation that they could be connected to the same killer.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  So buckle up, because if you think you know the story of what happened to 29-year-old Xavier Balagon in the summer of 2011, you're probably wrong. This is Park Predators.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning on Tuesday, July 19, 2011, a man named Jose, who lived in Nivelle, Belgium, awoke to the sound of someone knocking on his door. When he got up and answered, I imagine he was a bit surprised to see law enforcement officials staring back at him. The officials informed Jose that they weren't there to speak with him. They wanted to speak with his girlfriend, 28-year-old Mahela, because they had some unfortunate news they needed to inform her of. When Mahela came to the door, she learned that her ex-husband and father of her two young sons, 29-year-old Xavier Balagon, was dead. The officials explained to her that French authorities about 3:30 hours away, near Nancy, France, had found him with gunshot wounds outside a rest area on a highway called the A31.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Even more shocking was that officials told her they suspected Xavier had died by suicide, which, right away, was a detail that did not sit right with Mahela. You see, she and Xavier had been divorced and co-parenting their two boys for years. She'd known him since she was 19, and at least to her, him dying by suicide just wasn't something that she'd ever see him doing. Several days earlier, Xavier and their sons had traveled from Belgium to France to spend a week camping with his parents, Jean-Luc and Katia. That trip was reportedly something he and the boys would do with his side of the family every summer. The particular town they'd holidayed in was Joyus, France, which is about 10 hours south of Nivelle.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Obviously concerned by the situation, Mahela and Jose grabbed their stuff and immediately headed to the region of France that Xavier had been found in. In addition to the horrific news about her former partner, she was also worried about the status and well-being of their two young sons. The previous evening, around 8 o'clock, Xavier had told her he and the boys were going to drive 10 straight hours through the night to avoid hitting traffic. The plan was for him to text her when they got going so that she would have a rough idea of when he'd be back in Nivelle to drop them off. But Mahela had never received a text message from Xavier. She'd stayed up waiting for one, but eventually, when it got super late, she ended up falling asleep and didn't wake up until those officials showed up to speak with her at Jose's place. The Malva Rest Area, which is where Xavier had been found, is only about 6 hours away

• 4:30Speaker 01

  from Joyus, where he'd been vacationing. And like I mentioned earlier, it was less than 4 hours from Nivelle, which meant he'd driven most of the distance that he'd told Mahela he was planning to travel for. So the question became, who'd come across his path in that time?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  It didn't take long, though, before French authorities informed their Belgian counterparts, and in turn, Mahela, that both of their sons were safe. They'd been found in Xavier's car at the rest area, still groggy from sleeping through the night. As she'd made the 3:30 hour or so drive to get to her boys, she dialed her former father-in-law to let him know what was going on. Jean-Luc was a former law enforcement official in Belgium, so his instincts to want to push for more answers kicked in right away. He could hardly believe what Mahela was telling him, which was that she'd been told Xavier had reportedly died by suicide. Jean-Luc had just been with his son and his grandsons the previous day, and everything had seemed fine. Xavier had shown no signs of being troubled or that he intended to take his own life.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Right after getting off the phone with his former daughter-in-law, Jean-Luc called Xavier's cellphone, but no one answered. After that, he and his wife, as well as their two other children, went to the police station in the local village of Colombie-le-Belle, which was near the crime scene. It's important to note for context, in France, there's a military force that enforces the law and upholds the same duties as a police officer or deputy would, like in the United States. They refer to this force as the gendarmes. The Balagons had a lot of questions for French investigators, because, just like Mahela, they did not think Xavier had died by suicide. And they were right. Turns out, the first responding officials with the gendarmes who'd responded to the

• 6:11Speaker 01

  crime scene had been working the investigation as a homicide the entire time. Somehow, though, there had been a terrible miscommunication between them and the Belgian police, which resulted in Xavier's manner of death being misreported to his family. When that was all finally straightened out, though, officials with Nancy's deputy prosecutor and members of their gendarmes office told the Balagons what they could. According to the coverage, around 2:00 in the morning on the 19th, a patrolman who worked for the highway company was picking up trash at another rest area across the highway from the Malva Rest Stop when he heard what he suspected were at least five gunshots. He reported the sounds to his counterparts and was instructed to investigate the source himself.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  So within 5 minutes or so, he used a service road and went across the street to check things out. And it was there, near the entrance to the women's restroom, that he found a man lying on his back in a pool of blood. It was a eerie scene, because, other than the lit-up restroom facilities, everything else in the area, including the surrounding woods, was dark. By 2:45 a.m., officials with the Colombie-le-Belle gendarmes had arrived and identified the victim, Xavier. They were able to make his ID so quickly because he had identification papers on him. His vehicle, with his boys still inside, was parked in the rest area's parking lot. Its registration information confirmed that it belonged to him and that he was not a French citizen. After discovering the murder, authorities cordoned off the rest stop and tried their best to keep the scene contained.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  It was dark, though, basically the middle of the night, so they waited until shortly after 8 a.m. to start thoroughly searching the area for evidence. Something that became apparent right away was that Xavier had been shot at least four times. Investigative technicians from the nearby city of Nancy had found four cartridge casings near his body that were spaced out in such a way that indicated whoever had killed him had fired at him while walking directly towards him. What no one could initially make sense of was why the highway worker who'd first found him had reported hearing five shots, not four. It was a puzzling discrepancy that was later sorted out when the pathologist arrived on scene. That official ended up finding a fifth cartridge casing obscured by a strap on Xavier's bag,

• 8:22Speaker 01

  which was tucked beneath his arm. The location of that fifth casing seemed to indicate to authorities that it had been fired at very close range. Otherwise, it likely wouldn't have ended up where it ended up. After collecting the casings, investigators had an analyst who specialized in ballistics come to the scene and conduct an examination. They concluded that the shooter had used an older-model Swiss Army rifle loaded with 7.55 caliber ammunition. To get a better understanding of the type of firearm that had been used, authorities sent the cartridge casings to a lab for further testing. While they waited on the findings to come in, detectives split officers into groups to search the crime scene in three different areas. One group was tasked with looking in front of and behind the restroom building itself.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Another group of searchers were told to scour the rest stop's two parking lots. Now, for context, one lot was for regular cars and the other was for trucks, and they were both situated on each side of the restroom building. So it made sense to comb each of them for any potential evidence. And the last group of officers was assigned to search the toilets themselves and the immediate area around where Xavier's body had been discovered. Investigators also tried to review surveillance footage from a camera at the rest area's entrance, but unfortunately, the camera would only capture footage of activity that happened in real time, and those recordings weren't archived. So investigators' only option was to interview the camera operators who'd been working on the night of the crime to find out if any of them had seen anything strange. Once again, though, authorities hit a wall.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Turns out, the morning of Xavier's murder, the rest stop's camera had been facing away from the toilet facilities building toward the highway's traffic lanes. So the operators hadn't noticed anything that could help police. Authorities' next avenue of investigation was determining who might have been parked at the rest area at the same time Xavier was. According to the coverage, there were 24 trucks occupying the nearby parking lots at the time of the crime, and many of those drivers were not French. Some were, but others were Romanian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, and German. So investigators had to bring in several interpreters just to get statements from them. And time was of the essence here, because authorities couldn't keep these drivers in France forever. Eventually, they'd need to leave the country and return to wherever they lived and worked.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Of the 24 truck drivers, though, only four of them told police they'd heard gunshots. And one of those four, a man from France, had a very interesting recollection of the night of the crime that he thought investigators might want to know about.

• 10:52Speaker 00

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• 11:23Speaker 01

  One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts. The truck driver who gave investigators what appears to be the most detailed account was this guy named Jean-Noël Forrest. He explained that between 8:30 and 9:00 PM on the night of Monday, July 18th, he'd pulled into the Malva Rest area to take a much-needed break. But when he went to the parking lot designated for trucks, there were no spots left, so he drove around to the car lot instead, which he told the officials was totally empty at that time. Around 10 o'clock, he said he fell asleep for a few hours, but then woke up to the

• 12:55Speaker 01

  sound of several gunshots nearby. He estimated he'd heard the shots around 2:00 or 2:30 in the morning. And it was so concerning to him that he crawled out of his bunk and into the front seat of his cab so he could check things out. But as he sat there in the darkness, he didn't hear any other sounds. No more gunshots, no screaming, nothing. Now, he had a clear view of the rest stop's exit, though. However, he didn't notice any cars or vehicles take off from the area. From his front seat, he said he glanced over into his truck's right-side rearview mirror and saw the headlight of a car parked directly behind and to the right of his vehicle. It was kind of pulled in at an off-center angle, which is seemingly why it got his attention. Authorities were able to determine that the car Jean-Noël said he saw was Xavier's.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  But what was kind of strange was that, according to Jean-Noël, he'd never gotten out of his cab to see if anything was amiss with that car. In his statement, he explained that since he hadn't seen anyone get out of the vehicle and no other truck drivers had emerged from their cabs to investigate the situation, he just stayed put. He hadn't noticed two young boys sitting in the vacant car or anything that appeared out of place. From the angle he was positioned in, he didn't have a direct line of sight to the restroom building, so he hadn't seen Xavier's body lying there. Something he did note, though, was that, in his opinion, the truck driver who was parked in the truck lot closest to the bathroom facility should have definitely heard the attack. Which is why it made it all the more puzzling to officials that neither Jean-Noël nor

• 14:20Speaker 01

  any of the other drivers had dialed emergency services when the crime occurred. In the end, investigators followed this truck driver line of inquiry as far as they could. They questioned all the drivers, tested their hands for gunpowder residue, and searched their trucks and trailers for any evidence associated with the crime. But nothing was found. And one by one, the drivers were all cleared. A key detail that officials did take away from Jean-Noël's account, though, had to do with the fact that he'd said he hadn't seen any cars or vehicles leave the rest stop area right after he heard the gunshots, which implied whoever the shooter was likely had come and gone on foot. And wouldn't you know it, after authorities wrapped their ground searches, they discovered

• 15:02Speaker 01

  that there was a section of fence that went around the rest area that had been cut and flattened down, almost as if someone had sliced through it to get in or out of the area undetected. If one were to have done that, it would have been a fairly easy parallel walk to the highway for someone to get away. Also near said flattened piece of fence was a partial footprint on the ground and a dry cigarette butt. Now, the cigarette butt being dry was an important detail also because, you see, it had been raining in that part of France shortly before the crime. So there was no way the cigarette butt could have been left well before the murder, or else it would have gotten wet. The fact that it was dry strongly indicated it had been discarded recently. However, if it was the killer's or just another piece of trash, no one knew for sure.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Investigators also interviewed Xavier's sons, who were elementary school age at the time. But neither of them were awake when their dad was murdered. They didn't hear any gunshots, but one of them did mention he might have heard a scream, which wasn't a detail any of the truck drivers who'd heard the gunshots remembered. So I'm not sure what to make of that information, just given the boys' ages and level of awareness in the middle of the night. It's difficult to know for sure whether what one of them thought they heard even happened. During their first conversation with police, Xavier's sons hadn't even been told their dad was dead. They went over what they knew, but it mostly involved him making just a few stops during their road trip back to Belgium. The boys were called pulling over at least three times after leaving their campsite in Jauvus. They stopped once at a gas station, once at a rest area, and then finally at the Malva

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Rest stop. And toll receipts investigators had collected from Xavier's car corroborated those movements. The record showed that Xavier had left the south of France on Highway A7, headed toward Lyon. Then he'd taken Highway A6 and passed through a toll booth in another area before eventually getting on the A31, which is the highway Malva Rest area is located off of. Something investigators couldn't get to the bottom of, though, was the source of a text message that one of the boys said he'd remembered his dad had received just prior to stopping for the last time. Authorities had recovered Xavier's cellphone at the crime scene and begun forensically analyzing it, but they were never able to determine who'd sent that middle-of-the-night-last text message because, apparently, the tech analyzing the phone had been unable to turn it back on.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  I don't know if that means the device died at the crime scene and then, once police got there, they couldn't get into it, or what. But from what I was able to find in the available source material, the text message history of Xavier's device wasn't something authorities were ever able to retrieve. The only info about this that police could confirm was that none of Xavier's relatives said they'd texted him while he was approaching the parking lot. When his autopsy was completed nearly a week after the crime, investigators learned that not all five of the shots that had been fired had actually been fatal. Les Républicains coverage stated that one of the rounds struck Xavier in his abdomen and another fatally damaged his skull. There were also two bullet wounds on his hands that authorities surmised had likely come from him trying to defend himself.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  A fifth shot had been fired near the base of his neck and pierced his body, but exited. To try and make headway, by early August, investigators in France had started to turn their attention more towards Xavier himself, where he lived, his background, and so forth. Coverage by Les Républicains explained that French officials had asked Belgian authorities to begin their own investigation into Xavier's life to try and determine if there were any clues there that might point to why this happened. I assume the reason that French authorities couldn't do this themselves was because potential sources of information in Belgium were legally outside their jurisdictional grasp. But try as they might, authorities in Belgium couldn't find anything suspicious in Xavier's life.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  He didn't have a criminal record, nor anything in his background that overtly stood out as a reason someone would want him dead. A robbery motive was also ruled out pretty quickly because nothing of value like his bag and cellphone had been taken from the crime scene. So that's why I think investigators in France wanted to look at him more closely. That effort was ongoing even when Friday, August 5th, rolled around. That was the day Xavier's family laid him to rest in Nivelle. Hundreds of people attended the funeral, but because the circumstances of his murder were still under investigation and the killer was at large, there were some safety concerns for his family members. So it seems for either their protection or perhaps just their preference, his actual burial ceremony in his family's vault was a very private service.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  At the time of his murder, Xavier worked as a technician for a British pharmaceutical company called GSK. He was described as single, but like I mentioned earlier, he and his ex-wife Mahela remained very close because of their co-parenting situation. And it was their relationship history that, for a time, grabbed investigators' interest.

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  first big tests. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get iXL now. And Park Predators listeners can get an exclusive 20% off iXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com/park. Visit ixl.com/park to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.

• 22:10Speaker 06

  That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts. Some of the first people authorities interviewed from Xavier's life were his ex-wife Mahela and her partner at the time, Jose. While questioning Jose, investigators asked to see his text message history and most recent phone calls, but that information on his device had been deleted. Jose's response, when asked why all that data was gone, was to say that it was normal for him to delete his texts and call history. Now, full disclosure, my husband and older sister are both like Jose.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  They almost immediately delete anything on their phone that isn't top of mind for them. And they've explained it to me as their way of, like, reducing their chances of getting overstimulated, which I can understand. However, I, on the other hand, have text messages in my phone, literally as I speak, which are like four and five years old. I know that's probably anxiety-inducing for some of you, but my point is, everyone organizes their phone or deletes texts and call history differently. Not having your most recent activity on your device isn't necessarily suspicious. But in Jose's case, investigators weren't letting up. It's very possible that Mahela and Xavier might not have been, like, through-through despite being divorced. According to some of the source material I read, including an interview Mahela gave

• 23:45Speaker 01

  to La Television, she and Xavier were considering getting back together, or even planning to be remarried. So investigators had to consider whether Jose, the new partner, might have been jealous of their relationship, or had a motive to want Xavier gone. But Jose personally being the shooter wasn't a viable theory because he was with Mahela in Belgium several hours away from the crime scene when the shooting occurred. Still, authorities speculated whether he might have hired someone to take out Xavier. But Jose's response to coming under suspicion was that he didn't hold any ill will towards his partner's former husband, and he had accepted the fact that if they got back together, he'd need to move on. Not to mention, there was zero evidence pointing to Jose being involved.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  All officials had were circumstantial theories. Mahela later told the Irish Sun that Jose being considered a person of interest was, in her opinion, total nonsense. Naturally, she was also questioned by officials, but it became apparent right away that she was not involved in what happened to Xavier. She was described as a loving mom who would never have wanted this to happen to her ex-husband, especially since their kids were with him. She retained a lawyer and cooperated fully with the French officials who were heading up the investigation, but as time passed with no progress, she later told the Irish Sun that the way she was treated was "an outrage" and that authorities would not give her any information about the case when she'd asked.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  It was no secret that French authorities suspected Xavier's murder was potentially a contract killing. The prosecutor handling the case told reporters as much at a press conference in late September 2011. Something that didn't align with the hitman theory, though, was the fact that apparently Xavier had decided at the last minute to come home early. According to the coverage, his plans to return overnight on the 18th into the early morning hours of the 19th were only known to a few people: his parents, Mahela, his best friend, who he texted about having a barbecue with, and his young sons. So it seemed almost unbelievable that a contract killer would have known where he'd be at any given time in his trip, unless they were following him. The prosecutor explained that there were 13 investigators working the case round the

• 25:55Speaker 01

  clock, and the collaboration between French and Belgian authorities was going well. The problem was, the case was just challenging. Authorities had to comb through a vast amount of information, including lots of video that had been captured on the roadways at toll booths around Melva Rest Stop that night. They also went through records for people who'd committed speeding violations, you know, just in case one of those motorists could have been involved. But those leads led nowhere. Around the same time as the prosecutor's press conference, Xavier's parents and Mahela traveled to Nancy to have a long meeting with officials about the case. A few months later, in January 2012, the ballistics testing on the shell casings from the crime scene had concluded, and the findings were eye-opening.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  The lab that had examined the evidence determined that the exact type of gun that had been used in the crime was a rifle which had last been manufactured for military use in 1958, so a very old firearm. It was specifically a Schmidt-Rubin K31 model. An expert who was interviewed by Le Républicain explained that this particular type of gun had been issued to members of the Swiss Army from the early 1930s to the 1950s. It was a bolt-action rifle that had a slide you'd have to, like, manually maneuver to eject a spent round and reload a new one. Meaning, with respect to this crime, it wasn't the type of weapon most people would pick if they were going to try and shoot someone five times in a row at close range.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  The source material essentially described this gun as a collectible, which might have been a clue about the killer in and of itself. The question was, who would have had such an old firearm, and why? Was it a weapon that had been passed down from one generation to the next, or had it been obtained more recently by someone with a particular interest in collectible guns? I'm sure the police were asking all those questions. And to try and get answers, they interviewed gun dealers who'd sold K31 models or 7.55 caliber ammunition. They also let other officials across France and neighboring countries know that they were trying to identify who would have possessed such an unusual gun. A firearms expert who spoke with Le Républicain explained that the specific caliber ammo the shooter used was difficult to come by in France.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  According to him, there were more units of that kind of ammunition sold in Belgium. Also noteworthy was the fact that, in France, a Schmidt-Rubin K31 rifle was considered a war-caliber firearm, meaning there were stringent restrictions on where you could store it and where you could operate it. The firearms expert that spoke with the newspaper said that most folks, for fear of getting in trouble, would never put it in their personal vehicle because French law stated it could only be operated as part of a shooting activity, like at a gun range or in a shooting competition. There had been about 600,000 of these rifles made, but the upside was that each gun left a unique trace of itself on rounds that were fired from it. So ballistically speaking, police knew they were looking for a one-of-one somewhere.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  But by the one-year anniversary in July 2012, no suspects had been identified, and the case remained unsolved. A French deputy prosecutor told the press at that time that despite exploring all avenues of investigation, there appeared to be no reason for why Xavier had been the victim of such a ruthless crime. By that point, the investigation had been handed over to a new judge for review, and it seemed that the balaganse in Mahela's patience with authorities was wearing thin. The public, the press, and even Xavier's family couldn't help but speculate about what might have happened. Some coverage suggested the theory that he might have witnessed something at the rest area he wasn't meant to see: a drug deal, perhaps, or something else sketchy that he had no connection to but was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  In the fall of 2012, the case made a resurgence in news headlines, when once again, a lone gunman struck on a mountain road in France, murdering a family of tourists and a local cyclist before disappearing into the landscape. These are the Lake Annecy killings from September 2012 that I mentioned at the start of the episode. The victims in that crime were British citizens Saad Al-Hilly, his wife Iqbal Al-Hilly, and Iqbal's mother Sahela, as well as French cyclist Sylvain Molié. The only survivors of that attack were Saad and Iqbal's two young daughters. That case remains unsolved as well, but early on, authorities looking into the quadruple homicide case couldn't help but notice the similarities between the two crimes, including

• 30:14Speaker 01

  the fact that a unique Swiss Army firearm had been used in both incidents. The only big difference was that the gun used in the Lake Annecy killings was a Swiss-made pistol, and the firearm in Xavier's case was a rifle. Still, authorities in both investigations began to collaborate and share information to see if there was a connection. It was hard to ignore the fact that the Lake Annecy victims had all been gunned down while traveling and enjoying recreation activities while in southern France. The Al-Hillys and Xavier were both in cars that had foreign license plates, which could have been a detail that alerted their attackers that they weren't from the country. There was also the fact that the shooters had not killed any of the children present at both crime scenes.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  With respect to the Lake Annecy case, Mahela, Xavier's ex, told the Irish Sun, quote, "I pray this new lead will finally help catch the person who took away my children's father. If it does prove to be the same killer who murdered the British family, fresh clues may emerge. I desperately hope so. Until now, there has been so much speculation and so few answers." End quote.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Xavier's grandfather spoke with that same news outlet and echoed Mahela's comments. He told the publication straight up that he believed the cases were connected. But an official link has never been established between the two crimes. Around the two-year anniversary of Xavier's murder, the lieutenant colonel who'd been the supervisor of his case transferred out. The second judge assigned to the investigation had moved on as well. And for a while, the case file was waiting for a third judge to take over. At that point, a lawyer who'd become a spokesman for the Balagant family told the press that from their side of the fence, the status of the investigation was disheartening. This lawyer had written letters and called the second judge for a while, but never heard anything back. He explained to Le Republican that Xavier's family and supporters were disillusioned

• 32:04Speaker 01

  by the whole thing, and all they could do was hold out hope that maybe the gun used in the murder would surface again in another crime, or that, in time, people who were loyal to the killer would no longer be so loyal. In 2016, on the five-year anniversary of the crime, Xavier's mother Katia told a reporter for DHL Spore that she wouldn't give up until the truth was known. Earlier that year, Xavier's dad, Jean-Luc, had passed away, never knowing who killed their son, and Katia was adamant that justice needed to be served. She explained to the news outlet that living every day without answers was difficult. She said, quote, "I don't sleep anymore, or almost. I never really got over it. Since my husband's death, it's even harder to live. I feel even sadder.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Many people tell me that we will probably never know what really happened, but I want to know who killed my son and why. I want to know the truth." End quote. Shortly before the six-year anniversary in 2017, the family's lawyer told a Belgian news publication that he'd learned from French officials that DNA had been found in Xavier's car, and reportedly, that DNA was linked to someone who was already known to French investigators. However, later, coverage by RTL News explained that the DNA was found on the car's dashboard, but it didn't actually come back to anyone. So it seems that the family's lawyer might have been mistaken. I don't know, it's hard to sort that discrepancy out. But what's wild to me is that this lawyer was reportedly no longer in touch with Katia,

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Xavier's mother at that time. In fact, she said she'd learned about this whole DNA development from watching the news, which, to me, is probably awful to go through. And sadly, she would never get the answers she desperately wanted. Reporting by Patrick Michal stated that by 2021, Katia had passed away too, and the only surviving family of Xaviers that were still around were his sons and siblings. For the past few years, new and old theories have emerged that have tried to make sense of his murder. A book has come out, a documentary, and of course, routine news articles. Some folks still speculate that the unsolved Lake Annecy murders are linked to his case, but without concrete proof, it's all just speculation. I read an article by Le Republican that cited reporting by French newspaper Le Parisien

• 34:17Speaker 01

  that stated, as recent as February 2025, authorities had determined that the same Danish camper had been camping where the Alhilees were in September 2012, and also staying at a campsite about 12 miles away from the rest area where Xavier was killed in 2011. That detail is super interesting to me, especially when I read about something else that was discovered in 2025. According to the coverage, authorities reviewing the evidence in Xavier's case went back and tested nine cigarette butts that had been collected from the crime scene. They discovered that four of those cigarette butts contain Xavier's DNA, which makes sense, at least according to one source I saw, because back in the day, his sons had apparently

• 34:59Speaker 01

  told police that they remembered seeing their dad take his pack of cigarettes with him when he left to go use the restroom. But what's strange is that according to some other reporting published in 2025, Xavier apparently didn't smoke cigarettes regularly. And that night, reportedly, he didn't have a pack with him. One of his sons told a reporter that he didn't specifically remember seeing his dad smoke during the holidays. However, Hannah's brother were pretty young at the time and weren't paying very close attention. For the sake of theorizing, let's just go with the reporting that stated Xavier did have his own pack of cigarettes. What I can't understand is how, in just a few minutes he was supposedly gone to the restroom, he managed to smoke and discard four of them. I'm not personally a smoker, but that seems like a lot for one quick pit stop.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  RTL's coverage suggested that the number of butts left behind with Xavier's DNA on them could mean he spent longer than anyone originally thought outside the toilet facilities building. But there's contradictory evidence regarding Xavier even using the restroom at all that night. Turns out, when his autopsy was done, the pathologist noted that his bladder was full when he was killed, which means unless he relieved himself for the other reason, it's kind of odd he still had urine in his bladder. Do the cigarette butts with his DNA mean he stood there and smoked for a bit? Is the reporting that he didn't have his own pack to be believed? If so, then where did the cigarettes come from? What about the other butts? And don't even get me started on wanting to know everything about that dry cigarette butt that was found by the cut fence.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Whose DNA is on that? I've been asking myself all of these questions for years, but to date, there are still no clear answers. According to reporting by Eric Nicholas, as of March 2026, Xavier's case has been transferred to a national cold case unit for additional evaluation. As part of my reporting, I reached out to Xavier's ex-wife, Mahela, for an interview, but as of this recording, I've not heard back. It's heartbreaking to me that she and Xavier's sons have had to go so long without answers. They've had to grow up without their dad. It's terrifying to think that they were so close to his killer, and yet so far. I hope that if any of you listening heard details in today's episode that stand out

• 37:09Speaker 01

  to you, or you have familiarity with the collectible firearms market, particularly in the parts of Europe I've talked about, kindly get in touch with the National Unit for Serial or Unsolved Crimes with France's Ministry of Justice, which is handling the investigation. A link on how to do that is in the blog post for this episode, as well as in the show notes. Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators. I think Chuck would approve.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  In the dark, even the most familiar trail can feel like it leads somewhere else. Every rustle becomes a warning, every shadow, a doorway. In Full Body Chills, those doorways open into worlds pulled straight from your nightmares. This spooky season classic returns with chilling new tales, immersive sound, and no promise that you'll find your way back. So step off the familiar path if you dare. Listen to new episodes of Full Body Chills every week, wherever you get your podcasts.