Alps Shooting update: Sylvain Mollier’s relationship with Claire Schutz upset her family
The mystery in the Alps Shooting has taken a new turn with a claim that the passing French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, who was shot dead at the same time, had been involved in an unpleasant family row over an inheritance, may have been the target.
Sylvain Mollier
According to the Sunday Times, Sylvain Mollier was embroiled in a bitter dispute with the family of the young woman he was living with, Claire Schutz. The family’s inheritance was worth over $2 million.
Schutz, a woman 16 years younger than him, inherited her parents’ pharmacy business so Mollier did not simply take paternity leave from his work at the nuclear metal works factory Cezus, as was reported at the time – he negotiated a three-year absence.
The Sunday Times also notes that he was riding a £4,000 racing bike on the day he was killed.
Schutz’s family were particularly concerned about Sylvain Mollier’s spending. “There was a bitter dispute over what was going on and this got worse when Sylvain took three years off to effectively live off Claire’s money,” an anonymous source said.
The paper was unable to get a comment from the Schutz family and claims that Claire Schutz’s uncle, Pierre Morange, a political ally of former President Sarkozy, has advised the family “to take what has been described as a ‘vow of silence’ on Mollier’s murder”.
Ever since the al-Hillis and Mollier died in an execution-style shooting on September 5, there have been sporadic suggestions that the French and British police might be barking up the wrong tree in trying find a motive for the murders in Saad al-Hilli‘s background as an Iraqi-British engineer living in Surrey.
