5 found shot in French Alps

Army bomb disposal unit now on scene.

CX.

Bomb disposal guy on Sky talking about the situation, saying it could just be a "search assist" task where they do an assessment after being informed of suspicious substance/device in the property.

Also mentioned about a firearm being found, but as the bomb guy says this will have to be checked for booby traps.

One thing that does spring to mind, there seems to be a few suggestions surrounding this guys work and possible substances that could have been found.......wouldn't it be more likely that if this went down like a professional hit, that there could have been a back up plan planted at the house?

If it was quickly apparent that not everyone in the family was killed at the scene in France, maybe someone decided to leave the remaining members a present for when they get back home?

CX.

Mid-day BBC radio news.

Large building in the garden connected by large (I think) electric cable.!

Flying saucers, Portal, Time travel or weather manipulation?

It all becomes clear. Hehe.

Originally posted by dowot
Mid-day BBC radio news.

Large building in the garden connected by large (I think) electric cable.!

Yeah you can see it on Sky news from the news chopper.......looks like your every day garden shed. Gardens a bit of a mess but nothing untowards is obvious. Most large sheds these days have leccy hook ups.

CX.

Bomb disposal has left now.....obviously not that concerning.

Cordon still in place around home, search still ongoing.

CX.

Whichever substance it was, it reportedly wasn't hazardous.

[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9533266/France-shooting-al-Hilli-family-neighbours-allowed-home-after-bomb-scare.html[/ur l]

A Surrey police spokesman said: "Surrey Police can confirm that items found at an address this morning... in Open Lane, Claygate are not hazerdous.
"The items were found earlier today when a search of the property was extended from the main building to out buildings in the garden.
"A bomb disposal unit was called to the scene to carry out an assessment as a precautionery measure."

Originally posted by theabsolutetruth
Whichever substance it was, it reportedly wasn't hazardous.

[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9533266/France-shooting-al-Hilli-family-neighbours-allowed-home-after-bomb-scare.html[/ur l]

A Surrey police spokesman said: "Surrey Police can confirm that items found at an address this morning... in Open Lane, Claygate are not hazerdous.
"The items were found earlier today when a search of the property was extended from the main building to out buildings in the garden.
"A bomb disposal unit was called to the scene to carry out an assessment as a precautionery measure."

Wow - spelling?
Not got much faith in the Telegraph after this.
'precautionery', 'hazerdous'?

Apparently there was a only single shooter (enter another deranged lone gunman at some point in the future).

25 spent 7.65mm (0.32ACP) cartridge cases were recovered at the scene, all apparently fired from the same weapon.

What did the shooter use? He would have had to change magazines two or three times with most automatic pistols in this calibre.....Did he instead perhaps use a silenced vz.61 Skorpion machine pistol?

If so he did damned well to get just the two bullets into the head of each of the victims, rather than completely riddling them.

The story is certainly full of holes!

Originally posted by squarehead666
Apparently there was a only single shooter (enter another deranged lone gunman at some point in the future).

25 spent 7.65mm (0.32ACP) cartridge cases were recovered at the scene, all apparently fired from the same weapon.

What did the shooter use, he would have had to change magazines two or three times with most automatic pistols in this calibre.? Did he instead perhaps use a silenced vz.61 Skorpion machine pistol?

If so he did damned well to get just the two bullets into the head of each of the victims, rather than completely riddling them.

The story is certainly full of holes!

Well this article suggests that the police are looking for TWO shooters.

According to prosecutors all four victims were shot twice in the head, increasing speculation that the family were victims of a professional hit.
It was also reported that French police are hunting two killers after discovering that more than one weapon was used in the shootings.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Was looking at this, from The Guardian:

www.guardian.co.uk...

Each of the four dead people was shot at least three times, once in the head and at least twice in the body. Maillaud said 25 cartridges had been found (10 more than had been identified yesterday).

& this from The London Evening Standard:

www.standard.co.uk... 896.html

A single weapon was used to carry out the Alpine massacre in which four people including a British couple were gunned down in cold blood, it emerged today.

The revelation reinforces a theory that a highly-trained professional contract killer was behind the slaughter.

Detailed ballistic analysis of 25 spent cartridges found at the scene close to Lake Annecy, in eastern France, has shown they all came from one 7.65mm automatic pistol.

Apparently the link for the Standard article won't work(?) - Click the 'news' tab on their page.....The story I was referring to was the top article.

At any rate it seems the story is diverging (being obfuscated)?

reply to post by squarehead666


The most recent update on that was the Telegraph one that says they were looking for 2 culprits. They revised it after forensics and the recent update today is that it wasn't two people.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Only one gun was used in the attack on a British man shot dead with his wife, mother-in-law and a cyclist in the French Alps, police in France say.

Let's hope the French police are better at saying it how it is and keeping the evidence and reports clear and true.

Reports on type of weapon used, also now saying they are unsure as to how many culprits

news.yahoo.com...

"Yes, it's confirmed," Maillaud told Reuters when asked about reports of a 7.65 millimetre automatic pistol being the only weapon used in the multiple murder on a remote mountain road near the border with Switzerland and Italy.

About 25 gun shells were retrieved from the area and the corpses of the four victims suggesting that there could have been more than one gunman. Maillaud has repeatedly declined to say whether police were searching for one assailant or more.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Surrey Police said: "The items were found... when the search of the property was extended from the main building to outbuildings in the garden. A bomb disposal unit was called to the scene to carry out an assessment as a precautionary measure." In the afternoon, the force said its officers were using power tools to access a safe at the address.

The revelation that a single gun was used in the shootings comes after the number of cartridges recovered by detectives led to speculation that there was more than one gunman. But police have not formally revealed how many assailants they believe could have been involved at the scene. Meanwhile, a gun expert quoted by the AFP news agency, Yves Gollety, president of France's Chamber of Gunsmiths, said the 7.65mm calibre can be found in a range of "relatively old, even outdated" pistols. In France, police have recovered a laptop computer from the caravan in which the family was staying and are studying more video footage from around the crime site.

Originally posted by squarehead666

The story is certainly full of holes!

WHAT story? It's ALL speculation at this stage.

Edit: I note that the British police are pretty p*ssed off at the French for allowing journalist and the public onto the scene before a thorough forensic examination of the area had taken place. I guess even Grissom at CSI would have trouble finding clear evidence ...... Idiots!


Maybe the one lesson learned is: if you want to murder someone, do it in France!

reply to post by AndyMayhew


That link takes me to a weather site?

www.theweatheroutlook.com...

reply to post by starchild10


Just checked, it was in quotations from Surrey Police, maybe it was given to the Telegraph in written format and they copied it directly to print. The Telegraph are normally good with spelling, especially given the spellcheckers used in major journalism. Here's the pro per link

Originally posted by AndyMayhew
Edit: I note that the British police are pretty p*ssed off at the French for allowing journalist and the public onto the scene before a thorough forensic examination of the area had taken place.

I thought they had only opened the area 40 hours after, that's why there's no photos from the crime scene, only those two (at least those were the only ones I saw) taken from a helicopter.

More details emerging.

report

French Alps massacre victim Saad Al-Hilli and his family abruptly switched campsites two days before they were gunned down, it was revealed last night.

According to witnesses, Mr Al-Hilli, an aeronautical engineer, was seen regularly leaving the campsite alone – while a mystery man was seen wandering around during the time the family was there.

Mr Janssen said: ‘We were told they planned to stay all week but they left suddenly. The father left the site in his car alone four or five times each day. He went out for 20 or 30 minutes each time. ‘The first time we thought he was going to the shops, but it was very odd to go out so often.

We saw the grandmother and the older girl. They only had the caravan and we thought it looked cramped for five people.’ They added that they did not see anyone visit the family, but noticed an unusual man dressed in a smart jacket at the campsite at the time the Al-Hillis were there. The couple described the man as of ‘eastern European appearance like someone from the Balkans’.

I saw in one French site that the calibre (7.65mm) of the bullets used is considered "old", as it hasn't been widely used since the 1960s (or something like that).

Can anyone with some knowledge of this comment?

Thanks in advance.

reply to post by ArMaP


This is from The Guardian from an expert on such things.

Firearms with a 7.65mm calibre are not as powerful as some modern 9mm pistols and are still fairly prevalent, said Philip Boyce, UK firearms expert for Forensic Scientific. "It's probably the most famous calibre.

There is the old James Bond Walther PPK. You can get very early 1903, 1904 pistols that were made in that calibre. It ranges from back then to now and they are still making them today. It could be quite a modern gun was used," he said. "It's probably a pistol of some sort. There are a lot of manufacturers around the world make them. It's not a low, low calibre. It's still very dangerous."

Boyce added: "The fact that there are 25 cartridge cases is interesting. Normally you have between seven and 15 cartridges in a magazine. So the person who did this may have had two magazines, or they have got a special one where they have got an extended magazine, which will take 25 cartridges. Normally you wouldn't expect a pistol of that calibre to have a 25-cartridge capacity magazine."

Perhaps these meetings are the biggest clue.

T elegraph

A source close to the French investigation confirmed that the family had abruptly changed campsite and that Iraqi-born Mr al-Hilli had met with several people in the region in the days leading up to the massacre. The source told The Daily Telegraph: “We are going through them now but we don’t have all the names yet. We now have a very precise timetable of their movements.”