Nearly four months after the indictment of Michel Pialle for the murder of his wife Karine Esquivillon in Maché (Vendée), investigators are still working to find out what really happened. According to the fifty-year-old’s version, Karine Esquivillon was the victim, on March 27, of an accidental gunshot while handling a rifle. But the gendarmes are also studying the hypothesis of intentional homicide and looking for a motive.
During their investigations, they discovered that the suspect and the victim had established relationships with a family of Ukrainian refugees and provided them with administrative assistance, reports The Parisian. In this context, the Ukrainian family’s social benefits were paid into a bank account in the name of Michel Pialle. Account to which the suspect, already convicted in the past for fraud, was the only one to have access. According to the daily, the Ukrainian father said he never managed to connect. Money transfers took place to Luxembourg. Was there embezzlement? Was Karine Esquivillion aware?
A love relationship ?
Investigators also discovered that the Vendée mother suspected her husband of having a romantic relationship with one of the Ukrainian refugees, a 16-year-old teenager, according to The Parisian. Karine Esquivillon and Michel Pialle were officially separated but still lived under the same roof.
After having long proclaimed his innocence, even speaking out on social networks, Michel Pialle confessed on June 15 to having killed his partner then hiding her body in a wood.