La DISPARITION inexpliquée des MÉCHINAUD

Dans la nuit du 24 au 25 décembre 1972, les 4 membres de la famille Méchinaud disparaissent mystérieusement. 51 ans plus tard, l’enquête est toujours en cours… 🔔 ABONNE-TOI !

💜

🌙 Bienvenue dans mon cabinet de curiosités virtuel, dans lequel je te parle de criminologie, psychologie, d’histoires souvent étranges et parfois effrayantes.
Si comme moi, tu es un petit glauque-nerd, tu devrais t’y plaire 🤓

💜

🦇 1 vidéo chaque samedi à 17h 🦇

👁👁 SOURCES :

⚫️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEpZ8ayb7_k

⚫️ https://www.rtl.fr/actu/justice-faits-divers/cold-case-qu-est-il-arrive-a-la-famille-mechinaud-disparue-le-soir-de-noel-1972-7900282797

⚫️ https://www.ouest-france.fr/societe/justice/podcast-quest-devenue-la-famille-mechinaud-disparue-a-noel-1972-7a89b94c-4b38-11ee-9bb3-2be90e05de99

⚫️ https://www.sudouest.fr/justice/disparition-de-la-famille-mechinaud-une-nouvelle-piste-50-ans-apres-14466409.php

⚫️ https://www.ouest-france.fr/societe/justice/recit-et-si-un-jour-ils-revenaient-la-famille-mechinaud-a-disparu-il-y-a-50-ans-2c1214d0-ae1c-11ed-a7fa-81e9d82a996b

⚫️ https://www.marianne.net/societe/police-et-justice/disparus-de-boutiers-50-ans-apres-la-justice-sur-les-traces-de-la-famille-mechinaud

⚫️ https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_M%C3%A9chinaud

⚫️ https://www.charentelibre.fr/charente/boutiers-saint-trojan/disparus-de-boutiers-saint-trojan-une-piste-en-charente-maritime-6361297.php

⚫️ https://www.aufeminin.com/news-societe/disparition-mysterieuse-de-la-famille-mechinaud-le-soir-de-noel-une-piste-etonnante-etudiee-s4061001.html

⚫️ https://www.lexpress.fr/societe/famille-volatilisee-39-ans-apres-les-recherches-reprennent_1054445.html

⚫️ https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2007/04/03/enterres-sous-x_891234_3224.html

🔮 Retrouve-moi sur :
▶︎ TWITCH : https://www.twitch.tv/sonyalwu
▶︎ INSTAGRAM : @sonyalwu
▶︎ TWITTER : @SonyaLwu
▶︎ TIKTOK : @sonyalwu

▶︎ contact pro : sonyalwu@gmail.com

▶︎ Ma boutique de merch’ glauque : https://shop.spreadshirt.fr/sonya-lwu/

⭐️

🎶 Silent Night (Dark Piano Version) – Myuu ● http://facebook.com/myuusic ● http://twitter.com/myuusic ● http://myuusic.tumblr.com ●

🎶 Old Lake (White Rain) ● Jesse Walton ● AudioNetwork ●

🎶 Mystery – HolFix ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_GORUTEthM ● https://www.youtube.com/holfix ●

⭐️

Fun fact n°245 : Ça peut paraître dur à croire mais en 2022, à Paris, il n’y a eu qu’un seul décès de cycliste.

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all well. We’re back today for the last video of the year, and for the occasion, I’m going to tell you about a 51-year-old cold case: the disappearance of the Méchinaud family. It’s one of the oldest French cold cases,

And one of the most mysterious, since even today, every lead followed by the investigators seems to have led to… nothing. It’s as if the Méchinaud family had completely vanished that Christmas night in 1972. 
 So, as usual, I’ll leave you to make yourselves

Comfortable, switch off your lights, and as soon as you’re ready; off we go! [Mystery, HolFix] It’s December 24, 1972, in Boutiers-Saint-Trojan, a small commune of around 1,400 inhabitants just above Cognac, in the Charente region of France.

The Méchinaud family is getting ready for Christmas’ Eve. Let me quickly introduce them. 
First, there’s Jacques, the father. He’s 31 and works as an electromechanic at the Saint-Gobain glassworks in Cognac. 
His wife, Pierrette, is 29.

She’s a housewife and looks after their two little boys: Eric, 7, and Bruno, 4. They’re a discreet family with no history, who don’t get much publicity in the village. At around 7pm, the Méchinauds leave the village in their car,

A garnet-red Simca 1100, registration number 544-JV-16. They set off in the direction of Cognac, to visit the Fontanillas, a couple of friends living on rue de la plante in Cognac. It’s about 3.7km from their home, but it’s not an easy drive that evening, as it’s already dark and foggy.

Nevertheless, the journey seems to go smoothly. The Méchinauds spend Christmas’ Eve with their friends. Everything seems to be going smoothly and normally. The Fontanillas remember: “They were having fun together. We didn’t find anything unusual.” In the end, the only thing a little strange

Was the Méchinauds’ departure time: around 1am. Mr. Fontanillas remembers that he was a little surprised, and annoyed: “They left late, even though they knew I was working at 4am.” So it’s early morning on December 25. It’s around one o’clock. Jacques

Méchinaud turns on the engine of his car, leaving it running for a few minutes to give the heater time to warm up the cabin. Even if the journey is short, he doesn’t want his children to be cold. As for Eric and Bruno, they’re all excited, even though

It’s way past their usual bedtime. They can’t wait to get home and find out if Santa has already come and put their presents under the tree. The Méchinauds thank the Fontanillas, everyone

Hugs and kisses, and the family climbs into the car. The headlights of the Simca 1100 disappeared into the thick fog and darkness… We’ll never see them again. The family and their vehicle disappear completely, never to be found again.

The next day, December 26, the family’s friends and family worried that they had heard nothing. It was Maurice Blanchon, the son of the Méchinauds’ neighbors -more about him later- who seemed to be the first to notice their absence. He informs Pierrette’s brother-in-law

And together they enter the Méchinauds’ house, as Maurice had the key. They find the house empty and are seized by a strange premonition. They immediately contacted the gendarmes, but they weren’t worried: as far as they were concerned,

The children and father were on vacation, so the Méchinauds must simply have gone away for a few days. It wasn’t until ten days after Christmas, at the beginning of January, when Jacques Méchinaud failed to return to work at the Saint-Gobain factory as

Planned, and the two little boys, Eric and Bruno, didn’t show up for school either, that the gendarmerie finally began to worry. The disappearance was taken seriously and the search finally began. Except that the investigation will inevitably suffer from all this lost time, since in cases of

Disappearance, it’s the first few days that are the most crucial, and you have to act very quickly. After that, testimonies are less reliable, and many leads are lost… The gendarmes organize a visit to the Méchinaud home.

Inside, everything seemed to indicate that the family had never returned from Christmas’ Eve in Cognac. The shutters and doors were closed. The children’s presents, still wrapped, wait upstairs under the tree. In the fridge, turkey and oysters were prepared for the festive meal,

But nobody touched them. Everything was ready for a family Christmas in the house. The family’s important personal effects were also found: a chequebook, which was lying in plain sight, and the family record book. Clearly, the house had not been burgled, there had been no struggle,

No hasty departure… It was as if time had stood still on Christmas night. The first hypothesis is naturally that of an accident. As part of the road between the Fontanillas and Méchinaud houses runs alongside the Charente river,

It’s easy to imagine that the car could have fallen into it. Given that it was dark, foggy and potentially icy, it could have gone off the road… The river was cordoned off by gendarmes, who inspected the banks over a long

Distance in case the vehicle had been carried further by the current; sounded by divers, flown over by a helicopter -unusual for the time- but nothing was found. The same goes for the surrounding chasms. For lack of evidence, other theories had to be considered. So there’s the criminal hypothesis.

For this, the gendarmes needed to know more about the seemingly unremarkable family. They drew up portraits of the Méchinauds. The Méchinauds were a “recent” arrival (about 2 years) to the Boutiers commune. Discreet people. Jacques Méchinaud is part of a very large family: he had 12 brothers and

Sisters. He began working at an early age in the factory, under particularly trying working conditions, but Jacques was a hard worker. In his spare time, he did odd jobs repairing cars, which he then resold to earn extra cash.

As for Pierrette, she was a neat-looking woman. She was a pleasant, gentle woman… Unfortunately, not much more is said about her, as a discovery soon overshadows everything else. Pierrette had a lover. This lover was Maurice Blanchon. You know, the son of the Méchinauds’ neighbors,

The one who first reported the family missing and had the key to their house. Pierrette and Maurice had been having an affair for about 2 years, and seemed deeply in love with each other.

When questioned about it, Maurice admits everything. He doesn’t try to deny it at all: “Yes, it’s true, I was her lover. I went to see her whenever her husband left for work or was away for bike races.” As I was telling you, Maurice had a key to the house,

Which Pierrette had given him for the evenings when her husband worked nights, so he wouldn’t have to knock on the door. It was better this way, to avoid waking the children. And also because “it reassured her when she found herself home alone at night”.

You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you…? According to Maurice Blanchon, Jacques learned of his wife’s affair a few days before Christmas. “It was one of Pierrette’s friends who warned me. Be careful, he knows,’

She said. Jacques was a proud man. I guess he didn’t appreciate learning that everyone knew.” Still according to Maurice, Jacques reacted violently when he learned of his wife’s affair. He would have “given her a hell of a beating.

Pierrette had a black eye. They must have seen it, the Fontanillas?” However, the couple’s friends never mentioned any signs of blows, or even any tension between Pierrette and Jacques on Christmas’ Eve. Did the Méchinauds hide this terrible aspect of their relationship from their friends?

Maurice Blanchon’s version is supported by several other people who confirm the threatening remarks Jacques had already made. In particular, he is quoted as saying to a neighbor: “If one day I find out my wife is cheating on me,

I won’t spare anyone. There will be no remission. I know places…” And one of Jacques’ brothers also confirms, in hushed tones, this underlying violence: “So proud. “What does the family think? I’m a cuckold…” Well, yes, that’s it. Because… He was quite proud of himself. He could,

Because he was a handsome guy. He knew what he wanted. You didn’t want to annoy him too much either… He was quite strict.” So, what do all these stories suggest? The terrifying theory of anticipation? Preparation? Jacques

Seemed to have already thought about it. Perhaps he had even premeditated his gesture? Let’s try to imagine. What if Pierrette had told her husband she wanted a divorce and Jacques couldn’t handle it? Would he have decided to make the

Family disappear, before going on the run -as in the Dupont de Ligonnès case? Or would he have decided to kill everyone, including himself? It would be a homicide-suicide, as we unfortunately see all too often in tense family situations bathed in violence…

So the investigators extended the search area, looking and searching everywhere Jacques might have deliberately driven the car. Bodies of water, rivers, precipices, ravines, everything was searched… but to no avail. That said, these searches were obviously concentrated in the region,

And we can’t rule out the hypothesis that Jacques Méchinaud may have chosen a more remote area, spotted in advance, which was not investigated. But the strange thing is, once again, that it was Christmas Eve, with all that

Had been prepared for the following day… Of course, it’s not impossible, but it would require incredible emotional restraint on Jacques’ part, which neither his wife, nor the children, nor their friends would have noticed… Generally speaking, when a murder is premeditated,

You don’t bother to plan for everything that happens afterwards. As we’ve already seen in numerous cases, the murderer doesn’t buy a return ticket for their victim, for example, nor do they plan meals for so many people.
On the other hand,

If he had planned to carry out the deed on the night of the 24th to the 25th, he was obliged to “play the game” to avoid arousing suspicion, and therefore to let his wife wrap presents, do the Christmas shopping, etc…. It’s very creepy of course, but I imagine

That’s what an extremely determined person would be prepared to do? Well, the problem is that, once again, it’s just an hypothesis, and there’s no concrete evidence to suggest a crime. So another, more optimistic theory emerges: Jacques may have “taken his family hostage” and decided

To go abroad to get away from everything and start a new life from scratch. Bear in mind that this was the ’70s, so traceability was much less of an issue. It was much easier to leave and disappear to the ends of the earth on a whim…

And one country in particular seems to stand out: Australia. Jacques had wanted to move there for a long time. His job at the Saint Gobain factory had taken him on several trips to Italy, Spain, Morocco and even… Australia.

So, in the best-case scenario, did he take his family to live there? In a much darker version, did he kill his family and then flee to the other side of the world? “Australia! They went to Australia. Pierrette had told me that Jacques wanted

To go there to stop paying taxes and start a new life. Pierrette didn’t want to go and some time before the disappearance, I know he laid hands on her to convince her to leave. If they left, she had no choice. She had to follow him”.

Another element to take into account : a few days before their disappearance, Jacques is said to have gone away for 2 days to “see a friend in Vendée” -we have no further details on this short trip. Pierrette took the opportunity to see Maurice

And repeatedly told him : “Don’t worry, don’t worry”. At the time, Maurice says he didn’t understand, but now he thinks it’s because she knew they were about to leave for the other side of the world.

“You know, I often think about it… What if one day, they came back?” So, this thesis gives us hope, of course. But it still seems unlikely. No movements have been recorded on the Méchinauds’ accounts since their disappearance.

Nor is there the slightest trace of their car crossing the border. Above all, there has been no sign of them for over 50 years now. The children, Eric and Bruno, would probably have come forward eventually. And Pierrette… she would have addressed something

To Maurice: a note, a simple letter, saying “everything’s fine with me, but I have to say goodbye, it’s all over, but I don’t want you to to worry”… Something, though. How could any of the family members

Have let their loved ones worry for 50 years, if on top of that, only one of them really wanted to leave, and the others were forced to? While we can’t say that this hypothesis doesn’t hold water at all, I think it’s preferable to dismiss it,

And return to other darker, but more realistic theories. So what about Maurice Blanchon? Couldn’t he have killed the whole family? It’s worth noting that he was one of the only people to have been heard by the gendarmes in this case,

I.e., to have been “officially” questioned. But the questioning, in 1972, was very cursory, amounting to no more than a half-page transcript… So the trail not at all seriously explored, at the time of the facts.
Much later, in 2021,

Excavations were organized in his house and on one of his plots, but nothing came of them. Well, I think you’ve understood, but it’s important to stress that the investigation, at the time of the events, was rather light. While the search

Of the area at river level seems to have been properly carried out (basically, everything relating to the accident hypothesis), the rest was far less thorough. The witness interviews were very cursory, as was the interrogation of

The lover, even though he should have been an essential suspect. And I say that even for him, because if he’s innocent, he should have been removed from the investigation with solid evidence so that he wouldn’t still be subject to rumors, more than 50 years later…

In short, unfortunately, time goes by for decades, until 2001 and the arrival of Stéphane Chalumeau in Cognac, a new gendarme who is astonished to see that no one has really tried to take over the investigation since 1972. He became interested in the case and decided

To relaunch it. At the time, the file only contained around ten pages, so there was little to go on… especially for a case that was almost 30 years old. It was also around this time, perhaps a few years after Chalumeau’s arrival,

That the gendarmes began receiving letters from a mysterious raven. They gave them a fairly detailed version of what had happened when the family disappeared. They mention “a fight” that allegedly took place on the night of the 24th to the 25th,

At around 3am. The raven went so far as to point to a house some 500 metres from the home of the missing family, which had been abandoned for many years, saying “the bodies are over there, in a well”. Investigations were carried out at

This house and… and absolutely nothing was found. Did the crow make it all up? Did they hear things that were partly true, but mixed with false information? Was this a desire to put the police on the wrong track?

Once again, the investigators come up against a wall of unanswered questions. But they are not discouraged. An e-mail address is set up, for anyone who would like to contribute information -be it about the facts, a memory of 1972 concerning the family, about a possible accident,

Or anything else; but also for witnesses who think they may have seen the family since. We’re also thinking that, thanks to new technologies, we may finally find some new elements, and in particular… the car. In 2011, the river Charente was once again sounded

Using underwater radar. Surrounding cavities and quarries are inspected with georadar. A number of sites in the region were combed through.The operation is called “Bruneri 47”, in reference to the first names and ages of the two missing boys. But once again, all efforts were in vain. Nothing was found.

All these failures are really discouraging. And yet, in October 2012, a discovery reignited the investigation, when a walker looking for mushrooms in a wood wandered off the path and discovered two skeletal bodies. The place was Courcérac, in the Charente-Maritime region, some 25 kilometers north of Cognac.

According to the coroner’s initial observations, the bodies belong to an adult and a child, aged between 4 and 7. And, most disturbingly of all, the deaths occurred some forty years ago. 
On the face of it, it all adds up, and the investigators shudder to think that

The bodies of the victims have finally been found… But after DNA analysis, the trail was abandoned. Science was conclusive: these were not the bodies of the Méchinauds. And since this terrible news, it seems, there has been radio silence regarding these

Two bodies. I don’t believe their identity has been revealed in the press. Has it even been discovered? And then, some Internet users have pointed out that the genetic matches could have been made only with Jacques’ family.

So some think that if it’s the body of Pierrette and one of her children, it’s conceivable that it’s an illegitimate child, so their DNA wouldn’t match that of Jacques Méchinaud’s family. We don’t know if this

Lead has been verified. I imagine it has, I think it must have been done, and if we don’t hear anything, it must be that nothing came of it… But the lack of transparency in this area leaves the door open to a whole host of rumours and theories.

And so, once again, we’re back to this family that has completely vanished into thin air. Several more years pass. In an interview, Jean-Paul Méchinaud, Jacques’ brother, said he was tired and discouraged from ever getting an answer.

“It’s incomprehensible. We’ve been looking for it (the car) for half a century and nothing. Not the slightest trace.” In 2020, there was a new twist: an anonymous letter was sent to the gendarmes. It implicated a resident of the village of Boutiers, Claude,

Who died in 2019. The letter mentions a quarrel over the sale of a winery, as told by Claude’s ex-wife. And this transfer, with which he did not agree, is said to have led to threats. The wife is quoted as saying, “My ex-husband is very dangerous.

A long time ago, he made a family disappear”. Could it be the Méchinauds? But what would be their relationship with this man? It’s all very vague. In Cognac, however, it’s true that Claude was known for his strong

Character: “you didn’t want to piss him off.” 
 We also know that he was living in Boutiers in 1972, and that he was close to Maurice Blanchon, Pierrette’s lover. Finally, this man is also said to have threatened a journalist who was investigating the case in 2004.

But I’d rather not get your hopes up too long. Despite searches of his home (after his death, that is), this new lead yielded nothing further. “We did some checking on people who might be a match. We really searched a lot of places. We didn’t find anything,

But it allowed us to close some doors. We still can’t tell the Méchinauds’ relatives where they are. We just know where they aren’t…” Today, the case of the Méchinaud family disappearance will soon be 51 years old,

And it is still neither solved nor closed. The investigation has been taken over by the Nanterre cold case unit, which is encouraging, as it means that there is probably still hope that it will finally be solved. Stéphane Chalumeau, who has investigated the case for 20 years, said:

“There’s always someone who knows something. It’s important because there’s a family waiting to mourn, to know what happened.” He also believes that the media coverage surrounding the case also has an important role to play: “Maybe the articles published on this case will

Wake someone up who might know something. For those close to the family, it would be good if we could get some answers.” It’s difficult for me to try to bring a conclusion or a moral to this story.

I think what I find interesting, above all, is to see these gendarmes and investigators who still haven’t given up. It’s clear that the investigation wasn’t properly conducted at first, but today, there are men and women

Working to shed light on the events of 1972, and… that’s beautiful, I think. It’s also important to remember that every year, nearly 40,000 people disappear in France. The vast majority are found, but around 1,000 of them are considered genuine disappearances.

This number is huge, we’re talking about almost 110 people reported missing every day, 3 of whom are never found… So you can imagine that we don’t have the material resources to carry out in-depth investigations into each and every one of these disappearances, unfortunately.

We also talked about this a long time ago on this channel, but there are some things that are complicated in France: we don’t have official databases for missing persons. We also have between 1,000 and 3,000 people

Found dead every year, who are not identified because no DNA analysis is carried out -because it is too expensive- and who are therefore buried anonymously… This leads to tragedies like the case of El Mekki Terrak,

Whom his son Hisham searched for 8 years, worried about his father who had Alzheimer’s and had disappeared, and who only recently learned that his father had in fact been buried anonymously in a cemetery, 10 minutes from his home…

Now, I’m not saying that this is the Méchinaud family’s case, of course: 4 people, including two children, would not have gone unnoticed in this case, but I’m just trying to explain to you that, unfortunately, disappearances

Are much more common than we think, and that the means are almost never sufficient. What’s more, here we’re talking about a case from the 70s, with far less technology to understand what might have happened, no telephony to sift through

No Internet history, no geolocation, no tracking of movements, purchases, prior to the disappearance… Without even mentioning the time wasted at the start of the investigation, but which is clearly attributable to the fact that there is a right to privacy and even, in fact,

A right to disappear. If you, or you and your family, decide overnight to move to the other side of the world, technically, you don’t have to answer to anyone… Personally, as far as this case is concerned, I’m rather torn between the different hypotheses.

I would say that inevitably, the one that seems the most credible to me is that of a homicide-suicide or a homicide-escape on the part of Jacques: given the circumstances, his past statements, the fact that he’d already thought about

Where to hide his family’s bodies if he killed them, the fact that he was doing off the books work so he’d been able to build up cash reserves, and his knowledge of mechanics, which may have helped him make the car disappear or hide it….

That’s quite a few elements. Still, the accident theory also remains plausible. Despite all the current means that we have, it is not so easy to find a body, or even a car… I’m thinking in particular of the cases of Lucas Tronche and Eric Foray, unfortunately,

Who were missing for years and who were very close to home… And finally, we can’t rule out the possibility that the Méchinauds were eliminated by a third party, but that’s already harder to explain: they were in a car, and no trace of violence was found

At home, so it would have happened on Christmas night, on the road…? I find that less plausible. You may also have your own theories, so don’t hesitate to discuss them in the comments, I think it could be very interesting.

I also find that there’s a lack of information about the Méchinauds’ friends, at whose house they Christmas Eve: there’s nothing to make me suspect them, but in fact I noticed that they were quickly ruled out as suspects and that’s about it, which I still find

Crazy given that they were the last to have seen the Méchinauds alive. Again, if the investigation was botched in the first place, it’s a real shame, because it could have uncovered an interesting lead or closed the door

On them altogether. But just because there’s not much information about it in the press doesn’t necessarily mean that nothing was done. For all we know, they had an airtight alibi, and it just wasn’t made public. Anyway, I really hope

That one day we’ll get an answer and find out what happened that Christmas night in 1972. I hope you enjoyed my presentation of this story! In any case, thank you for listening so far, and don’t forget to leave me a little comment,

Give me a thumbs-up and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already done so. Kiki and I are wishing you a happy end of the year; as for me, I’m going to take a short week off and we’ll see you at the beginning of January! I’m sending you lots of love,

I’ll see you soon, and in the meantime, as usual; Don’t forget to turn your lights back on! [Old Lake, Jesse Walton]