The Hidden Connection (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

MrBallen (0:00)

In 2013, a police sergeant in Northern France called the local telephone company and asked to set up a tap on a suspect's phone. He had a warrant in his hands and was ready to read off the details, but the operator on the line said, no, that can't be done, because that phone number was already being tapped as part of another murder investigation. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark & Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, the next time you and the follow button take a trip to the beach, every time they get up to go in the ocean, go ahead and cover their towel in sand. Okay, let's get into today's story.

A little before 7 p.m. on March 14, 2013, a 45-year-old man named Dominique Laplace sat at his desk in his home in Colmont, which was a small rural village in northern France. And as he sat there, he held this old coin under a lamp to read the date on it. And then when he saw what the date was, he typed the date into a search bar on his computer. So Dominique liked to collect things like coins and guns, and he was also kind of a small-time treasure hunter. He would go out into the woods quite a bit with his metal detector and search for buried bits of history. This coin he was looking at now was actually something he had found on his last trip. And, like most of his discoveries, it actually did not appear to be particularly valuable. There was really only one time recently when he had actually found something that was worth quite a bit of money.

But that discovery had actually led to the end of his last relationship. So until a couple of years ago, Dominique had been in a long-term relationship with a woman named Vero Pierret. She was a decade older than him and also happened to walk with crutches due to a physical handicap. Things between Vero and Dominique had always been very chaotic, and they'd finally broken up after a big fight over some jewelry that they had found in the woods together. Now, technically, Dominique was the one who found the jewelry first. But after they did some research and found out that this jewelry was literally ancient and worth thousands of euros, Vero had tried to claim all of it for herself, so she could sell it. The more Dominique resisted this, the more aggressive Vero got. And eventually, the argument reached a breaking point, and Dominique told her that this was it. Their relationship had just had to be over. And pretty much immediately, they went their separate ways, and since their breakup, they had not run into each other once. And in fact, Dominique by this point did actually have a new girlfriend whose name was Miriam Bernard. Dominique had actually known Miriam all the way since high school, but they had finally connected shortly after his breakup with Vero. And so now they'd been dating for about two years, and Dominique really had never been happier. During the week, Dominique worked as a special needs teacher for children and teens with family problems. And while it was very important work for him, and he cared deeply about it, it was also pretty stressful. So during the work week, after he was done, he would come home and he really liked to spend time by himself, just kind of unwinding alone at night. But tomorrow was Friday, and so the start of the weekend, and as usual now in Dominique's life, Miriam was planning to come over in the evening so they could spend the whole weekend together. Now, Dominique heard the oven timer go off in the kitchen, so he set down his coin and he turned off his computer. He went into the kitchen, he made himself a plate, and then he sat down at the table for dinner.

And as he started to eat, he pulled out his phone and he was about to call Miriam. He'd actually briefly spoken to her on another phone call about an hour ago, but they'd had to hang up before they finished their conversation. But before he could dial her number this time, he heard a knock at his front door. And this is, you know, mid-week. He never had visitors during the week, and he wasn't expecting Miriam tonight, and so he was just thinking how odd it was that somebody would be here now. But nonetheless, he, you know, put his stuff down, he got up and he walked over to the door to see who it was.