Before the court for the murder and dismemberment of the four members of a family is a man in France, who was convinced that they were storing gold that had been hidden so that it would not be found by the Nazis in a basement in an area in the western part of the country.
Ubert Quisin was convinced that he and his wife were being tricked into stealing their share of an alleged treasure, and he was spying on his son-in-law, Pascal Troandek, hoping to find him.
According to a Guardian article, on the day of the killings, in February 2017, he went to Troandek’s house to eavesdrop on conversations using a stethoscope leaning against the windows. However, he was spotted trying to steal a key.
Causin confessed to killing 49-year-old Troandek with a crowbar, and his wife, Brigitte, 49, and their two children, Sebastien, 21, and Charlotte, 18, in their beds. He faces a life sentence, but the defense wants to avoid the maximum sentence for premeditated murder by proposing his mental state.
The mystery surrounding the fate of the Troandek family, who had disappeared, had shocked France for more than three weeks in 2017.
The police said that their two-storey house in Orvos, near Nantes, looked “frozen in time”, with unwashed dishes in the sink, food on the table, etc. Traces of blood were found, but what had happened was fully revealed when the 50-year-old confessed to his actions.
The relationship between Causin, who was married to Pascal Troandek’s sister, Lindy, and his son-in-law was strained for years. Kawisin was convinced that the Trojans were hiding gold bars and coins that Lindy and Pascal’s father had allegedly discovered in 2006 in the basement of the building where he worked in Brest.
The gold was allegedly part of a 50-kilogram cargo hidden by the Bank of France during the German occupation in World War II.
Kawisin believed that his late father-in-law had left it to Troandek in his will and that his wife should receive a share. He told police he went to his victims’ home with a stethoscope to listen to their conversations through windows and doors and spent the night hiding in the garage until the family went to bed. He then entered the house to steal a key he had seen at one point, but made a noise and the couple woke up.
Pierre Sene, Nantes prosecutor, had said that “he hit and killed Pascal and Brigitte Troandek first and then killed Sebastien and Charlotte. The crime scene was a scene of great violence. The next night, Queensin returned home to clean it up and remove the traces of what had happened and pick up the bodies. “In the two or three days that followed, he tried to remove the corpses; it seems that the corpses were dismembered and some parts were buried while others were burned.”
Police later found 379 members on a Queensin farm in remote Brittany.
When first questioned by police, Queensin said he had seen them for years. Psychologists estimated that he suffered from acute paranoia.
His mother, Renee, told Le Parisien that her son, who worked as an engineer at a military base in Brest but had suffered a burnout, often spoke of the “family legend” of gold. She said she had never seen gold and other relatives doubted it had ever existed.
The trial will continue until July 9. Causin’s wife is accused of helping him remove the bodies.
