Karine Esquivillon is dead, she was killed by her husband. This is the terrible outcome of the three-month investigation into the disappearance of the 54-year-old mother. According to our information, the victim’s husband, Michel Pialle, a 51-year-old online second-hand dealer with a duplicitous personality, confessed at the very end of police custody. After having formally contested any involvement in the disappearance of his wife during his first hearings, the fifty-year-old ended up admitting, on the night of Thursday to this Friday, having killed his wife. The man evokes an accident, with a firearm, in circumstances that are still unclear.
In the wake of his confession, Michel Pialle led the gendarmes of the Nantes research section, in charge of the investigations, to a wood in Vendée where he had concealed the body of his wife. The relatives of Karine Esquivillon were notified early this morning of the macabre discovery and the confessions. The man is now expected this Friday morning at the La-Roche-sur-Yon courthouse in order to be presented to the two investigating judges responsible for the case opened for “kidnapping and forcible confinement” as well as “murder”. He faces indictment and detention on remand.
The couple’s two phones followed each other
After a first union, Michel Pialle had married Karine Esquivillon, a former hospital employee who became a stay-at-home mother, in the early 2000s after their meeting in the Paris region. The couple had three children together, including two aged 12 and 14 who lived with him in their house in Maché, a place called La Malnoue, near Challans (Vendée).
In recent weeks, the investigations of the gendarmes had very clearly tightened around Michel Pialle, described as a storyteller and already convicted of fraud. Many elements of the investigation overwhelmed him. First, the various inconsistencies and variations noted in his account of Karine’s sudden and voluntary departure on March 27, when he was looking for the family cat in the garden. The father of the family very often got confused between the dates, the facts, what he saw or did not see of the alleged flight of his wife, according to his interlocutors. According to her initial version, Karine would have left their home in the village of Maché, near Challans (Vendée), without a word for her children, to rest between the Landes and the Gironde. She could no longer bear to live with a man from whom she separated four years ago but with whom she continued to live together out of habit. A break yet ignored by those around the couple, including children.
Secondly, the examination of the activity of Michel and Karine’s telephones proved to be particularly instructive. That of Michel had been seized from the first hours of research and analyzed. That of Karine was found by chance on April 9, almost two weeks after the disappearance, barely 3 km from the home of the Pialle-Esquivillon near a secondary road by the mayor of the village. According to our information, investigators discovered that Karine’s phone had been turned off and on several times between March 27 and April 9.
However, each time the device was turned on again, it activated exactly the same telephone relays as that of Michel Pialle, as if the two telephones were following each other. Or as if one and the same user had them in their hands… In addition, the terminals activated by the devices were still in the Maché sector, which contradicts the thesis of a trip by the mother of the family to the South -West… Strangely, Karine’s phone was also always on during the hours when the couple’s young children were at school.
For the gendarmes, Michel Pialle was necessarily responsible for this telephone activity. Investigators suspect him of having used his wife’s phone to cover his tracks and send reassuring messages to those close to Karine, including their own daughter. The latter had notably received from her mother’s line two photos of the Pilat dune where she was supposed to rest. But the gendarmes discovered that the two photos were actually recovered from the Internet, one from Google Images, the other from a travel blog. Above all, they found that “Dune du Pilat” searches had been carried out on Google with Karine’s phone.
The family book found
Finally, during the search carried out in the couple’s house in Maché on Wednesday, the gendarmes were surprised to find… the family record book. However, in several interviews before his arrest, including at Le Parisien, the father of the family had declared that his wife had left in a hurry, taking this document as well as 40,000 euros. Investigators also seized a bullet-proof vest which they wonder about the usefulness. Michel Pialle was a sports shooter and as such owned five firearms.
There remains the crucial question of motive. Did Michel Pialle really accidentally kill his wife as he claims or does the motive take on other dimensions? Investigators considered a crime related to the fear of separation. These last questions – the conditions and the reasons for the murder – will be raised during the judicial investigation which should continue for many more months, even years.
