Family of four ‘murdered over gold bars’

THE mysterious disappearance of an entire French family who left behind a blood-stained home “frozen in time” was apparently solved yesterday after a brother-in-law confessed to killing them in a dispute involving gold bars.

He reportedly told police he killed the four with a blunt object, dismembered the bodies, then burnt them.

In a case that has transfixed France, Pascal and Brigitte Troadec, both aged around 50, their son Sebastien, 21, and his sister Charlotte, 18, went missing on February 16 from their home in a sub- urb of the western city of Nantes. An inquiry was opened into murder, abduction and illegal confinement.

Bloodstains were found throughout the two-storey house, food was going off in the refrigerator and there were dishes in the sink. “It’s as if the life of the house was frozen in time,” Pierre Sennès, Nantes prosecutor had said.

The brother-in-law, a construction engineer known only as Hubert C, 46, and Pascal Troadec’s sister, Lydie, 47, initially denied involvement.

But police detained the pair on Sunday after Hubert C’s DNA was found on a glass in the Troadec home and Sebast- ien’s car, which was recovered in a car park. Confronted with the evidence, he confessed to the murder of all four, the prosecutor confirmed yesterday. The sister is refusing to talk.

Sources close to the inquiry said that the most likely motive appeared to be a row over an unspecified number of gold bars that the sister and her husband accused Mr Troaedec of inheriting from his father and failing to share with them. Police have found no evidence of the gold. Neighbours said that the couple had “gone through a difficult time” financially and had become jealous of their wealthier relations.