OTHER HIGH PROFILE CASES > Other high profile cases

The mysterious deaths of Andrew and Dawn Searle

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Steve_uk:
The couple, Andrew, 62, and Dawn, 56, started a new life in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, a small town some eighty miles distant from Toulouse, in the south of France. He had been a financial crime investigator for Barclays Bank, which took him across Europe in the course of his employment. Dawn had been a project manager in Eyemouth on the Scottish Borders. They had managed a gites business for the past ten years, and got married during that time.

Dawn Searle was discovered lifeless outside by a neighbour last Thursday afternoon. She had suffered several blows to the skull from "a sharp and blunt object", a jewellery box found next to the body. Firefighters called to the scene found Mr. Searle shortly afterwards, hanging from a radiator inside the home. Authorities are investigating a murder-suicide scenario.

The couple's house, in the sparsely-populated village of Les Pesquies, appeared to have been "summarily searched". Cash was later found in one of the bedrooms by gendarmes.

No traces of sexual assault were found on Mrs. Searle's body. Her husband had "no visible defensive injuries".

The post mortem examinations were carried out in Montpellier on Monday.

Nicolas Rigot-Muller, the prosecutor leading the investigation, said further toxicological and pathological examinations were ongoing to determine the exact circumstances of the deaths.

“Investigations are continuing, in particular to determine whether the tragedy was the result of a domestic crime followed by suicide, or whether it was the work of a third party,” a written update issued by his office in Rodez added.

Gendarmes are interviewing the relations of Mr and Mrs Searle, each of whom has two children from their respective first marriages.

Mr Searle’s father, Fred Searle, an 88-year-old former major in the British Army from Littlehampton, West Sussex, said the family had “thousands of questions and very few answers”.

Friends and neighbours of the couple, who had married in September 2023, recounted seeing Mr Searle appearing “very agitated” during a phone call in the days leading up to the pair’s deaths.

The neighbour, who did not wish to be identified, said Mr Searle had been “violently arguing in English” while walking through the hamlet with his wife and two hunting dogs on Wednesday afternoon.

The neighbour recalled: “I saw them the day before they were found. They were walking the dogs, and Andrew was on the phone. He was very agitated and he was arguing violently in English. He just waved at me and then carried on.”

Antoine Da Silva, 63, a retired council worker who lives with his 62-year-old wife, Emilie, five minutes’ walk from the scene, said: “Last two times I saw him, he was walking up in a real hurry on his own with only one dog.

“He only said hello and waved. It was last week. He only said, ‘Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour,’ in a hurry. Didn’t even shake our hand.

Then last Tuesday, I saw him on the phone. He looked very worried. He said, ‘I can’t speak with you, I’m on the phone,’ and looked very worried and walked on immediately. I knew him very well. He was someone calm and quiet and nice. But the last two times I saw him, he was very different.”

Jean-Sébastien Orcibal, the local mayor, who married the couple in the nearby town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, said he was convinced they had been murdered, while dismissing the theory of a “burglary gone wrong”.

Questions have also been raised over the state of Mr Searle’s finances in the months before his death.

Publicly available financial documents in France show that a rental business he had set up in Les Pesquiés in July 2021 folded in December 2023, with no accounts filed.

Local sources said it had taken him more than a year to pay a bill of several thousand euros amid problems with his UK pension, and that he had been seen crying in the nearby town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue in December after finally settling it. https://youtu.be/pftIe9Cqq-4

Steve_uk:
Update on the case: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98gemml1y5o

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