Mobile phones belonging to a British couple found dead in France are providing “vital clues” about their death, French detectives said.
Andrew and Dawn Searle, a couple who lived in Scotland before moving to France around 10 years ago, were found dead by a neighbour at around 12.20pm on Thursday in Les Pesquiès, south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue.
Mr Searle was found hanged on Thursday near the body of his 56-year-old wife at their property in the quiet French town. Reports suggest that investigators are looking into whether gangsters with a “score to settle” were involved.
Pathologists are due to carry out a post-mortem on Monday to establish the definitive causes of death, and police are yet to make any arrests.
The phone of 62-year-old Andrew Searle – a former financial investigator who was involved in fighting organised crime - is proving “particularly helpful”, one detective said.
With investigators stumped on the exact circumstances of the couple’s deaths, technicians started examining their devices in the hope of finding a lead.
One investigating source said there is a “mine of information and recent calls made by Mr Searle are providing vital clues”.
It comes after neighbour Antoine Da Silva said he saw Mr Searle making an agitated phone call days before he died. “He looked very worried. He said 'I can't speak with you, I'm on the phone' and he walked on immediately,” 63-year-old Mr Da Silva said.
Another neighbour corroborated this version of events. “I saw them the day before they were found - they were walking the dogs and Andrew was on the phone,” he said. “He was very agitated, and he was arguing violently in English, he just waved at me and then carried on.”
Witnesses have been questioned about the concerning behaviour from Mr Searle.
Detectives working on the case are confident that any suspect will have been picked up by one of the many traffic, police and private cameras in the area. Footage of Mr Searle himself, just hours before his death, shows him in a tobacconist in Villefranche-de-Rouergue just before 6pm on Wednesday evening.
Jean-Sébastien Orcibal, a local mayor who married the couple two years ago, rejected suggestions that it could have been a “burglary gone wrong”.
Mr Orcibal is convinced the couple were murdered and believes they had “too much to live for” for a murder-suicide to be a possibility.
But Nicolas Rigot-Muller, the Rodez prosecutor leading the investigation, said he “cannot yet firmly establish homicide” although they both died “violent deaths”.
Mr Searle’s career as a counter-fraud specialist is among the leads which investigators are looking into. He worked for private companies in Edinburgh, the Serious Fraud Office and police, clamping down on global syndicates involved in crimes including money laundering.
His work involved investigating individuals and groups who may be barred from dealing in the UK due to their links with terrorists and rogue nations, such as Russia, before he took early retirement in 2015.
Mr Searle is believed to have encountered financial concerns relating to his pension, with financial documents in France showing a rental business he set up was forced into liquidation in 2023.
Calum Kerr, Dawn Searle’s son from a previous marriage and former Hollyoaks actor, has asked for privacy for the family during a “difficult period”.
A spokesperson for UK Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British couple who died in France and are liaising with the local authorities.”
