French Judge Participating in U.S. Homicide Investigation
Stymied by the puzzling stabbing death of a 36-year-old French citizen, those in charge of the San Francisco investigation have turned for help to French authorities.
A French investigator has been helping for several months, and a French judge will soon hear evidence from witnesses in federal court, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
Witnesses were summoned to appear June 17 in U.S. District Court before French Judge Brigitte Jolivet to give “testimony of potential violations of French law, including murder,” the newspaper writes. Police from San Francisco will also be involved in the questioning.
Victim Hugues de la Plaza, who was working as a sound engineer, was found dead in his locked Bay Area apartment last June. Although he had been stabbed to death, no bloody knife was found there. But a surveillance camera reportedly captured him on film returning to his home alone after visiting a nightclub.
Police have theorized that he might possibly have committed suicide and washed the knife before dying, but his friends dismiss that as a preposterous conclusion.
