The French Chronicles

We are doing something different today! You won‘t get one long story, but rather two short pieces of weird french news relating to True Crime.

Let us know if you like this format!

Police is baffled by a murder comitted in Caumont, North of France, in March 2013. Their most likely suspect has an air tight alibi, so they are back to square one.

But they were far from imagining that it would be another case, 40 km from Caumont, that would help them solve their mystery.

Toulouse, South of France, August 2015. People are looking for any possible way to cool off. Anaïs was worried. She hadn’t heard from her friend Eva for a few days. She tried calling, texting, Facebook messaging… But Eva was just silent. So Anaïs posted on Eva’s Facebook wall, asking if anyone had seen or been in contact with Eva over the last few days...

It’s 2017. Three defendants appear in court to be tried for the alleged murder of a garage owner who disappeared in 1996 in Magny-les-Hameaux in the Yvelines, not far from Paris.

It’s a crime that would not have been solved nor judged if there had not been another crime committed before.  Indeed, one crime can hide another.  This is the story of Fabrice Motch, the "Black Knight".

Today, again, we are going back in time. Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers was a French aristocrat who was accused and convicted of murdering her father and two of her brothers in order to inherit their estates. Wanna hear her story? Did she really do it? Gather around, and listen...

On September 13, 2006, a tall man with a mohawk and sporting a long black trench coat gets out of his car and walks a few blocks over to a college in Montreal’s center city carrying a heavy bag.

In the meantime, two friends meet up for lunch in the cafeteria when suddenly, shots are fired. They both fall to the ground.  One is unresponsive and the other one is still breathing.

Find out about their fate in this new podcast about the Dawson College shooting.

Our story begins on September 16, 1995. Gilberte, Stéphanie’s mom, leaves her a few voice messages on her machine, but she does not get back to her. She doesn’t really worry, until September 23, around 1pm, when she gets a call. She picks up, and on the other side, she hears the voice of Donald’s mother, asking her : are the kids with you? She answers : no.

Gilberte will begin her own investigation....

Conman, jewel thief, drug dealer and murderer, Charles Sobhraj eluded the police along the hippie trail in South East Asia in the 70s. Referred to as the Bikini Killer, the Serpent or the Charles Manson of the East, he was a modern time chameleon. It is estimated that he killed about 20 people but no one will ever know the exact number. In those days, some of the borders such as in Hong Kong and Thailand weren’t carefully looked after. So people could come and go as they please and that is exactly what Charles Sobhraj did.

Historians, scientists, pseudoscientists and conspiracy theorists have all proposed theories about what the Beast was. Among the suspects: a Eurasian wolf, an armored war dog, a striped hyena, a lion, some kind of prehistoric predator, a werewolf, a dog-wolf hybrid and a human... 

Take a deep dive with us into historical events and theories surrounding one of the biggest French mysteries : La Bête du Gévaudan.

On a windy road, lit with moonlight, in the South of France, a read Austin is on fire. Inside it, a man. Who is it? What happened? This is the story of Yves Dandonneau and a case of double indemnity.