twenty-five years of mystery in the Landes

What could have happened to Pascale Biegun? Born in 1964 in the north of France, this thirty-year-old blonde came to settle in the Landes with her friend, Rafaël Cuadros, for a “change of scenery”. On Wednesday, November 3, 1999, the young woman left her work, at the Work Assistance Center (CAT) in Moustey, around 7:10 p.m. This was the last time this caregiver would be seen.

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Raphaël, his companion, sounds the alarm

Very worried about not having any news from Pascale, it was her companion, Raphaël, a salesman driven by his job to travel the roads of the South-West, who raised the alarm. This Wednesday, he is in Corrèze, and, from his hotel, he is unable to reach the young woman by telephone. Back in the Landes the next day, he contacted the Pissos gendarmerie to start a search and file a complaint for kidnapping. Pascale's car, a Renault 25, was found on the road to Sore the same day.

No trace of footsteps or struggle will be noted around the vehicle, locked and parked sideways on a grassy strip. On either side, pine trees as far as the eye can see… The gear lever is engaged in first gear, which, according to those close to her, was not her habit: she always left the car in neutral.

Zone d’ombre

On November 10, the deputy public prosecutor in Mont-de-Marsan opened an investigation against X for “kidnapping”. By cross-checking various testimonies, the investigators managed to reconstruct the schedule of the young woman, who did not go to work that day. A gray area remains. The car was seen by several witnesses on the evening of November 3, and during the day of the 4th, where it was found. But from 7:50 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., the day of the disappearance, no one knows what could have happened. Her handbag, with her bank card and all her papers, remained in the mansion where she lives in Pissos, a beautiful isolated residence surrounded by pine trees, at a place called Richet, near the road to Sore where we found his car.

A “happy and balanced, uneventful” person

The hypotheses of suicide and running away are quickly ruled out. The personality investigation carried out from the start of the affair paints the portrait of a balanced person, “who did not have his mind clouded by psychological difficulties, and no cloud hung over his sentimental life”, according to the terms used at the time in our columns by our colleague, Pierre-Emmanuel Réault.

The investigation is then entrusted to the Pau Research Section, which collaborates with its colleagues from Mont-de-Marsan and the territorial brigade of Pissos. The DNA samples taken in the car yielded nothing, nor did the significant means implemented: searches in the surrounding woods with dog teams, exploration by six police divers from Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Arcachon de la Leyre, the river which winds through this sparsely populated territory, flight over the forest massif by a Mirage IV equipped with a military reconnaissance system… The entire sector which goes from Pissos to Moustey via Sore is raked and combed through: in vain.

Is this an assault? What was the young woman's car doing on this road when it probably had nothing to do there? Did she leave home after receiving a phone call, or under duress? Was the vehicle then moved to cover its tracks? Could she have fallen into a trap on this relatively busy road? The investigators, who also looked in vain at the Landes motorcycling community to which the couple belonged, raised all these questions, without ever arriving at a serious lead.

Fourniret, Allègre, Wolker Eckert: the trail of serial killers

A few months later, in February 2000, a man leaving the Mont-de-Marsan psychiatric hospital admitted to having killed the thirty-year-old blonde with an axe. The verifications carried out do not allow us to give credence to these comments which appear to be inconsistent. The trail of suspected sex offenders living in the Landes is also activated, but once again it is a dead end. A dismissal order will be issued in October 2009.

Finally, there is this similar case, the equally strange and unexplained disappearance of Sylvie Debrieu, on November 1, 1999. This forty-year-old, also described as “a very beautiful blonde woman”, lived in Pessac near Bordeaux. She worked in her husband's company where she played an important role. She disappeared two days before Pascale Biegun, in the same circumstances, after leaving the family home. Her car, a dark gray Peugeot 406, was found next to Saint-Jean train station in Bordeaux, locked with her handbag inside. So, a serial killer?

In 2008, a rogatory commission issued to the SRPJ in Reims also did not make it possible to make a connection between the disappearance of Pascale and the possible presence in the region of Michel Fourniret. The “ogre of the Ardennes”, who has since died in 2021, was arrested in 2003. No more than that of Patrice Allègre or the German serial killer Wolker Eckert, suspected at the time of a murder in the Bordeaux region. A dismissal order will be issued in October 2009.

On October 12, 2011, the Mont-de-Marsan Public Prosecutor's Office will request the reopening of an investigation for kidnapping on the basis of new elements. “This is the denunciation of a woman living outside the department, accusing her husband of being the author of the facts,” explained Jean-Philippe Récappé, public prosecutor, at the time. After investigation, this lead will not come to fruition either.