Despite the French Embassy ruling out the possibility of suicide in the death of Frenchman Laurent Vallier and his four young children in March, the Kompong Speu Provincial Court is still awaiting the delivery of complete forensic tests conducted by French investigators, a court official said Tuesday.
The remains of Laurent Vallier, 42, and his four young children, aged 2 to 9 years old, were found inside the Frenchman’s submerged car in January 2012, when police discovered the vehicle at the bottom of a pond near their home in Chbar Mon City.
In the days after the vehicle was found, Cambodian police insisted that it was a cut-and-dry case of a cash-strapped and desperate father who murdered his children and committed suicide. Even the court’s investigating Judge Chhim Ritthy said in February that the murder-suicide had occurred because Laurent Vallier was “broke and disappointed.”
Yet after an intense two-week investigation in March by a team of French investigators, the French Embassy said the possibility of suicide was impossible because two of the children had not died from drowning, Laurent Vallier was not in the driver’s seat and the car’s engine had not been on at the time it entered the pond.
Mr. Ritthy said Tuesday that while his court had received some documents from the French investigators, officials were still waiting for a full dossier.
“A month ago, we received some examination documents involving the skulls and the car which clarified that they did not die by drowning themselves; they died from murder,” Mr. Ritthy said, adding that he is now convinced of murder in the case.
“If the French investigators show that this is a murder, then we also agree with them,” he said.
In March, Mr. Ritthy said the French investigators identified two suspects but were still building a case against them.
When Laurent Vallier’s family in France filed a complaint for an investigation, they cited a bitter dispute between the Frenchman and his in-laws over 15 hectares of land in Prey Veng province.
The family accused the in-laws of stealing the nine land titles conferring ownership, all of which ended up registered to the in-laws when student volunteers working as part of the nationwide land-titling program demarcated land in the area.
Srey Oun, the younger sister of Mr. Vallier’s late wife, said that a few months ago, the French Embassy requested that she, her father and her stepmother to come to Phnom Penh for questioning. They returned home after.
“I don’t know why my brother-in-law and my nephews and nieces died,” she said. “I am not involved with the killing. I request for the French Embassy to find the real murderers and please find justice for us.”
