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Cellphones belonging to a British couple discovered lifeless in France are offering “very important clues” about their dying, French detectives mentioned.
Andrew and Daybreak Searle, a pair who lived in Scotland earlier than shifting to France round 10 years in the past, have been discovered lifeless by a neighbour at round 12.20pm on Thursday in Les Pesquiès, south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue.
Mr Searle was discovered hanged on Thursday close to the physique of his 56-year-old wifemat their property within the quiet French city. Reviews recommend that investigators are trying into whether or not gangsters with a “rating to settle” have been concerned.
Pathologists are on account of perform a autopsy on Monday to ascertain the definitive causes of dying, and police are but to make any arrests.
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The telephone of 65-year-old Andrew Searle – a former monetary investigator who was concerned in preventing organised crime – is proving “significantly useful”, one detective mentioned.
With investigators stumped on the precise circumstances of the couple’s deaths, technicians began inspecting their gadgets within the hope of discovering a lead.
One investigating supply mentioned there’s a “mine of data and up to date calls made by Mr Searle are offering very important clues”.
It comes after neighbour Antoine Da Silva mentioned he noticed Mr Searle making an agitated telephone name days earlier than he died. “He seemed very fearful. He mentioned ‘I am unable to converse with you, I am on the telephone’ and he walked on instantly,” 63-year-old Mr Da Silva mentioned.
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One other neighbour corroborated this model of occasions. “I noticed them the day earlier than they have been discovered – they have been strolling the canines and Andrew was on the telephone,” he mentioned. “He was very agitated, and he was arguing violently in English, he simply waved at me after which carried on.”
Witnesses have been questioned concerning the regarding behaviour from Mr Searle.
Detectives engaged on the case are assured that any suspect could have been picked up by one of many many site visitors, police and personal cameras within the space. Footage of Mr Searle himself, simply hours earlier than his dying, exhibits him in a tobacconist in Villefranche-de-Rouergue simply earlier than 6pm on Wednesday night.
Jean-Sébastien Orcibal, a neighborhood mayor who married the couple two years in the past, rejected options that it might have been a “housebreaking gone unsuitable”.
Mr Orcibal is satisfied the couple have been murdered and believes that they had “an excessive amount of to reside for” for a murder-suicide to be a chance.
However Nicolas Rigot-Muller, the Rodez prosecutor main the investigation, mentioned he “can not but firmly set up murder” though they each died “violent deaths”.
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Mr Searle’s profession as a counter-fraud specialist is among the many leads which investigators are trying into. He labored for personal corporations in Edinburgh, the Critical Fraud Workplace and police, clamping down on international syndicates concerned in crimes together with cash laundering.
His work concerned investigating people and teams who could also be barred from dealing within the UK on account of their hyperlinks with terrorists and rogue nations, akin to Russia, earlier than he took early retirement in 2015.
Mr Searle is believed to have encountered monetary issues referring to his pension, with monetary paperwork in France exhibiting a rental enterprise he arrange was pressured into liquidation in 2023.
Calum Kerr, Daybreak Searle’s son from a earlier marriage and former Hollyoaks actor, has requested for privateness for the household throughout a “troublesome interval”.
A spokesperson for UK International Workplace mentioned: “We’re supporting the household of a British couple who died in France and are liaising with the native authorities.”
