Murder in the Alps

We are and enjoying it immensely.
My money's on the brother (via a hit man) feeling aggrieved over the inheritance!

But the American former husband who dropped dead on the same day they were killed worried me. Too much of a coincidence?

I think it all gets problematic for the British police investigation when these things happen abroad. Not just the language, but the different approaches and reluctance to share important information.
Like the Pleine-Fougères youth hostel murder etc.

My own experience of the French police (reporting a break in into our car) didn’t inspire any confidence in them. I think the British policeman’s theory that the French made mistakes in their treatment of the crime scene at the beginning ( how on earth did a four year old hiding under a dress manage to be undiscovered for eight hours?) and his description of the almost total lack of enquiries into the cyclist who was shot as it was simply assumed he was collateral damage is enlightening.

Not to mention the discovery of the missing passports in Saad’s pocket years later beggars belief.

So it might have been the cyclist who was the real target! What a complete mess. I hope those 2 girls have managed to live a relatively happy, normal life.

Yes, I wondered what has happened to the two girls too. I hope they managed to recover from losing their parents in such a terrible way and are now happy.
This was a fascinating series and there were so many mistakes made that it's not surprising that the real culprit has never been found. Perhaps one day the mystery will be solved. I hope so.

I can't find episode 2 on More 4. Just episodes 1 and 3.
Anyone else?

I only saw a small bit of the programme, but wonder what an expert would’ve made of the brother’s body language.
I watched a similar programme on the Philpotts and all the ‘giveaways’ were so obvious, when shown and explained.

Yes, I too believe the cyclist was the real target as his girlfriend's rich family didn't approve of him. By killing the family in the car, this took attention away from him.

By killing the family in the car, this took attention away from him

Surely you wouldn't kill a whole family, including trying to kill a child, in order to do that? What sort of monster would do that just as a diversion?

I think it was the brother.

If the cyclist was the target, then the family were unfortunately witnesses, and would have had to be eliminated in order to prevent them from being witnesses who were able to testify against the killer. As the programme made clear, there is absolutely no evidence that the brother had anything to do with it at all. The French messed up the investigation from the first moment and refused to investigate the possibility of the cyclist being the intended target. This is poor policing because no possible lead should ever be ignored. The wealthy family of the cyclist’s girlfriend were said to want to disapprove of him and this was not properly investigated. The simple fact that the British family’s passports were missing for several years, leading to all kinds of far fetched speculation and investigation, such as the family were spies, and then the passports being discovered, not missing at all, but in Saad’s pocket where no one bothered to look, is testimony to the appallingly poor quality of the investigators in France, and therefore must lead to questions being asked as to why the possibility, even probability, of the cyclist being the target was not even considered by the French during their poor quality investigations.

I agree, maddyone. I'm convinced it wasn't the brother. No evidence at all.

I wonder if we'll ever know.

Sparklefizz

I can't find episode 2 on More 4. Just episodes 1 and 3.
Anyone else?

Yes! Same here. Very frustrating. I’m going to try it another day and hope it is there.

This is Episode 2, I hope!

www.channel4.com/programmes/murder-in-the-alps/on-demand/72251-002

Can someone please send a link to Episode 3

I am tempted to agree with maddyone because the father put his foot on the accelerator to drive away quickly on seeing the cyclist had been shot first. You wouldn't want to hang around.
The French police bungled it from the start. I have never understood their system where you have gendarmes, and police municipale and a host of judges and procurators all pushing papers around but not working in joined up fashion.

I think it more likely that the cyclist came by at the wrong time - a cyclist wouldn't be heard coming; the car had been parked there so it wasn't them passing by at the wrong time.

Talking of police forces who get things wrong/right, I've taped the Grace Malone murder in Auckland. Did anyone watch it? Sorry to derail.

There was so much more I wanted to know. Like why the wife was known by an American name when she lived there but as Iqbal in the UK? And where her mother was when she was in the US. It left so many things unanswered.

I felt the wife was targeted for spying or suspected spying.

there is a third theory imo.

What if they were all killed by a pyschopath on a killing spree; all complete strangers to him. This happens. You only have to look at mass murders around the world to see this.
A guy with a gun is wandering around the forest looking for trouble. He has an argument with the cyclist that boils over; shoots him then the poor family who were onlookers.

But a psychopath could have gone round the campsite shooting, or round a restaurant. Why the forest? That is what puzzles me.

I remember the case, but have not seen the documentary.

The French police may have made mistakes, or may not, I could not tell.

I have noticed over the years that when a crime occurs involving any nation's citizens who are not in their own country when murdered, raped, etc. etc. people always automatically criticise the police investigation,

Our police would never have done that is plastered all over the reporting of the case, and no one ever stops to think that "our police" may very well have done the same, and been criticised for doing it, when a crime occured on their own turf.

This particular crime did sound more like a spy novel than most spy novels do, and although we all know by now that psycopaths exist and may kill people at random, it is not usually the most reasonable explanation.

Unless new evidence turns up, or someone confesses to the crime on their death-bed, and does so convincingly, I don't believe this crime or many others like it, will ever be solved.

I may have missed an announcement, but although the German police said they had found Madeleine McCann's murderer, I think I am right in saying that no-one has yet found the child's body, or convincingly explained why a pedarast known for liking little boys should have abducted a little girl. Neither has anyone yet told us who actually killed de Lorca and where his body is, although practically each and every group that took part in the Spanish Civil War has been accused of his murder.

Worth watching if you can grandetanteJE65

It was the missing passports that did it for me. Much was made about the fact their passports were missing.

They were found 2 years after the murders in the jacket pocket of one of the victims. The police had bagged up items and hadn't looked in the pockets.

Also, much was made about the family being the intended target but now there are questions as to whether the French cyclist had been the target and maybe the family has witnessed it which led to the killings