CA CA - Hugues de la Plaza, 36, San Francisco, 2 June 2007

[SunnieRN]

I hope that the case will indeed be solved soon. I wonder if the SFPD has asked how Melissa found out about the death? If they have checked credit card statements, etc., to find out when her last trip to SF prior to the murder was?

Creepy when you bring up the pictures, how did she get them? The PD wouldn't give them out! Maybe the French Investigators did, ""Give them a little rope and they may hang themselves."

Then there is the fact that Melissa is a journalist, that could make huge career strides by helping "solve" a murder. Problem is, she may incriminate herself in trying to keep the investigation going! Too many questions are unanswered.

 

[Kenon]

I just went thru google to see what I came up with and I was shocked to see an article about how he had pulled hair in his hands. That is the first I heard of that and now I will go back and try to find it. Did anyone else read that? Very interesting how it's not all over the papers. I read it on one article and that's it. Going now to find it again.

 

[Kenon]

Ok found it. I don't know how to bring the link over here sorry! If you go into google and put in "march for justice and his name" it will come up. It says LE didn't take dna from fingernails or anything else.

 

[Kenon]

One more thing to say. What if he went into the kitchen to get the expensive silverware that was missing to bring to someone, since that's how the footprints go, to the kitchen then back out to the living room. Who would know about the silverware and why is that the only thing missing?

 

[WHITEFANG]

"I have not lived in New York since August 2003," Melissa told Detective Casillas.

To Hugues, "Here are some fond memories....from 2003 at my house in Brooklyn and at your send off to San Francisco on a hot August night." A friend of Hugues.

It appears they left New York in August 2003, and moved to San Francisco. They broke up in October 2003, according to Nix. It is hard for me to imagine she didn't pursue him there.

PASADENA PRODUCTIONS, Paris
FEB. 2009 – APRIL 2009 PRODUCTION COORDINATOR/CONSULTANT
Advise international crew shooting a French television documentary in San Francisco.
Write/lobby San Francisco journalists, politicians, residents to appear on camera.
Manage production and interview schedule.
Research and license pertinent documents and materials.

It seems she was directly involved in producing a French version of the 48 Hours television program about Hugues' tragedy. It aired in France roughly the same time 48 Hours broadcast theirs.

She may have taken pictures of the crime scene. She hired the crime scene clean-up crew. She could have photographed and videotaped it.

"I told him that the last time I had seen Hugues was Jan. 1 2007, and had only seen him a handful of times since moving back to California in November. I also told him that Hugues and I had broken up more than FOUR years before, in Oct. 2003.”

She cannot be credible and insist that Hugues was no big deal to her while everything else she says and does proves just the opposite.

“I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT HIS DAILY LIFE OR HIS FRIENDS OR HIS PLANS WHEN CASILLAS INTERVIEWED ME." If taken at face value, if true, this bold declaration is damning. Who, then, called her to give her the news if she was out of the picture? It implicates her Achilles heel. She has not specified who it was. She is MYSTERIOUSLY silent. If we can be sure of anything, it is that Melissa likes to expresses herself. You know? Until she opens up, a faint shadow of suspicion will widen and engulf her. There is no conceivable or remotely, valid justification for withholding the name of the person who informed her. My opinions, that's all.

 

[SnowAngels]

"I have not lived in New York since August 2003," Melissa told Detective Casillas.

To Hugues, "Here are some fond memories....from 2003 at my house in Brooklyn and at your send off to San Francisco on a hot August night." A friend of Hugues.

It appears they left New York in August 2003, and moved to San Francisco. They broke up in October 2003, according to Nix. It is hard for me to imagine she didn't pursue him there.

PASADENA PRODUCTIONS, Paris
FEB. 2009 – APRIL 2009 PRODUCTION COORDINATOR/CONSULTANT
Advise international crew shooting a French television documentary in San Francisco.
Write/lobby San Francisco journalists, politicians, residents to appear on camera.
Manage production and interview schedule.
Research and license pertinent documents and materials.

It seems she was directly involved in producing a French version of the 48 Hours television program about Hugues' tragedy. It aired in France roughly the same time 48 Hours broadcast theirs.

She may have taken pictures of the crime scene. She hired the crime scene clean-up crew. She could have photographed and videotaped it.

"I told him that the last time I had seen Hugues was Jan. 1 2007, and had only seen him a handful of times since moving back to California in November. I also told him that Hugues and I had broken up more than FOUR years before, in Oct. 2003.”

She cannot be credible and insist that Hugues was no big deal to her while everything else she says and does proves just the opposite.

“I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT HIS DAILY LIFE OR HIS FRIENDS OR HIS PLANS WHEN CASILLAS INTERVIEWED ME." If taken at face value, if true, this bold declaration is damning. Who, then, called her to give her the news if she was out of the picture? It implicates her Achilles heel. She has not specified who it was. She is MYSTERIOUSLY silent. If we can be sure of anything, it is that Melissa likes to expresses herself. You know? Until she opens up, a faint shadow of suspicion will widen and engulf her. There is no conceivable or remotely, valid justification for withholding the name of the person who informed her. My opinions, that's all.

Are we open to comparing personal experiences here on websleuths? If so, then let me figuratively compare myself to Melissa. I compare how I would feel if this same devastating tragedy happened to any of my ex-boyfriends from over four years ago. At this point, being so removed from our relationship, would I feel i own the right to a) contact his parents -whom of which I haven't spoken to in YEARS- about his death b) feel not only the RESPONSIBILITY but find SOLITUDE in being the face of "justice" in finding the truth behind his death and c) risk my current life state and sanity in order to give up everything (including my current dating relationships- let's face it, most of us move on in our quest for domestic happiness) to revolve my life around solving this bizarre mystery...?

For me, a 30-something, forward-looking, hopeful for the future thinking female...the answer to all of these options is a resounding NO.

I would possibly be terribly devestated, don't get me wrong...but, would it take over my life... (4 years removed)... I would not let it. And I am an emotional, sentimental person.

I would grieve for him, but if I wasn't intimately involved in his life when he died, then I wouldn't be this intimately and publicly involved in his death.

But maybe I'm terribly cold-hearted?

 

[WHITEFANG]

SnowAngels,
You are not cold-hearted. Thanks for sharing your perspective. You present as reasonable, fair and open; and I'd bet money you like to laugh and have fun.
Does anyone think there is a way to learn the identity of the person who contacted Melisas while she was on the east coast?

 

[SnowAngels]

SnowAngels,
You are not cold-hearted. Thanks for sharing your perspective. You present as reasonable, fair and open; and I'd bet money you like to laugh and have fun.
Does anyone think there is a way to learn the identity of the person who contacted Melisas while she was on the east coast?

It would have to be in the interview she gave with police, right?

 

[Shutterfly]

SnowAngels,
You are not cold-hearted. Thanks for sharing your perspective. You present as reasonable, fair and open; and I'd bet money you like to laugh and have fun.
Does anyone think there is a way to learn the identity of the person who contacted Melisas while she was on the east coast?

Well, her email address is floating around here somewhere IIRC. I think that's the only way anyone is likely to get a straight answer, if then.

I don't believe LE is withholding the information or refusing to release it. But now that I think about it, I'm sure Casillas isn't difficult to find either.

That's the only two possibilities I can come up with....unless that person comes forward on their own.....or that person doesn't exist.

Consider this; If Melissa called Oog's parents at 4 am their time, and their son had been dead for two days, then she called them from NY and it was 10pm (EST) on June 3rd OR she called them from CA and it was 7pm (PST) on June 3rd.

The notes attached to the autopsy report, dated June 4th at 7:10 am indicate that the French Consulate notified the next of kin. That means Melissa contacted his parents first.

According to the same set of notes, Melissa referenced suicide, to Det. Casillas, on the early morning of June 4th or it must have been the day before because the report is noted 9:30 am June 4th. He goes on to say that he intends to interview Melissa and Oog's family when they arrive LATER IN THE WEEK. But by Melissa's own account she was already there.

It looks to me as if Melissa did talk to Casillas. I get the impression he didn't refuse to talk to her. I suspect he did talk to her, but that he refused to GIVE her information and that's what she wanted. I think she called Oog's parents once she ran into being told that she wasn't family over and over again.

According to her she:

Found out
Called LE and got nowhere
Hopped a flight
Tracked down Casillas
Called the newspaper (and got the suicide response)
Called Oog's parents.

Now if she called Oog's parents last, as is stated in the video, then she called them from CA at 7 pm PST on June 3rd. My question is, if she did all of this before she contacted his parents.....how long had she known exactly?

So no one Oog knew was aware that he was dead. Not even his own parents. No coworkers, nothing. Yet this mystery caller whom Melissa refuses to indentify knew and subsequently so did Melissa.

This caller seems to be the missing link and she doesn't seem willing to throw their identity out there. Why? What possible motivation could she have for withholding this information?

As it stands right now, we have no reason to believe there was a caller to inform her that Oog was dead. All we have is her word and what she says changes over and over and over again. So what we have is a man who (if we believe) was murdered in his own apartment, and his ex-girlfriend who seems obsessed with him some four years after the fact and lives 2400 miles away, and she knows he's murdered before anyone else does.

In keeping with THIS theory, I'd have no choice except to assume that there is a high degree of loyalty that remains between Melissa and the mystery caller/killer or the truth will implicate them both. She moved back to the CA coast AGAIN not so very long after Oog was killed and that too strikes me as being odd, unless it was because of a man. She's just left there the previous January?!? I'd be looking into who Ms. Nix spends her time with and the pre-existing connections that any of those now close to her may have had to Oog.

That's ONE OF my opinions :banghead:

 

[SnowAngels]

After reading over the transcript:

The next day, Hugues had those plans to ride with Zamara.

"I ended up going by myself because he didn't answer his cell phone," he said. "I recall stopping and looking around and just calling him and cursing him. 'Where are you? I can’t believe you are missing this. It's great out here.' Then I did the same thing the next day. I called him and he didn't answer."

On Monday, Hugues never showed up for work.

"I went to his house. And I saw, you know, the yellow tape. There was still blood outside. There was blood on the street as well," said Zamara.

"And what was your reaction?" asked Maher.

Could it have been Zamara who phoned Melissa? Was there any relationship there? But then again, why would he call her of all people if she'd been out of the picture for four years??? Did they have a friendship?

 

[SnowAngels]

The more I try to rationalize this, the more difficult and confusing it is. How in the world did Melissa know before his parents? Why would ANYONE call her before reaching the family first? If it was indeed his co-workers who notified Melissa...why wouldn't they first call his parents?

Places of employment always require new hires to fill out emergency contact information. Did Hugues list Melissa as his emergency contact (even though she lived on the opposite coast?) Wouldn't his work or the police have notified his parents (or French Consulate)...? Very confusing.

 

[Shutterfly]

The more I try to rationalize this, the more difficult and confusing it is. How in the world did Melissa know before his parents? Why would ANYONE call her before reaching the family first? If it was indeed his co-workers who notified Melissa...why wouldn't they first call his parents?

Places of employment always require new hires to fill out emergency contact information. Did Hugues list Melissa as his emergency contact (even though she lived on the opposite coast?) Wouldn't his work or the police have notified his parents (or French Consulate)...? Very confusing.

I totally agree with you. What gets me is that if it were any of these things, why would Melissa be so reluctant to divulge the source of the information given her at the time?

I just found a video on the blog set up for Oog.

http://huguesdelaplaza.blogspot.com...d-max=2008-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=2

It's the Greta interview. Melissa, first of all, is acting like a space cadet and she has a generally bad disposition which I'd not seen before(IMO). In this video she states that the back door to his apartment was always left unlocked and his friends, or anyone who knew him, would know this...interesting.

 

[SnowAngels]

If it is true that she was contacted via phone, email, internet, what have you about his death...one would be led to believe that it is a mutual friend...

What mutual friends did they share? The bigger question is-- did they still share mutual friends? (I'm assuming yes?). Which friends would have been the first to find out about his death, and HOW did they find out about it?

One would be led to think that it was his work that first found out about it, outside of the police.

However, once the police ID the body (which they would have been able to immediately do)...isn't there next step to notify the family?

If they had to go through the French Consulate, I can see how his co-workers would find out first before the family, due to Hugues not showing up for work. Going through the French Consulate might be a lengthy process, but one would think in the case of a death, the process could be sped up. (I don't really know anything about how this works, I am just speculating).

So if his place of employment finds out before the family by default (due to logistics and time), I can see how a work friend would immediately notify other mutual friends of Hugues.

So the question is...how many degrees of separation were there between Melissa and his work friends? Would the time it takes for information to travel amongst circles of friends have reached her before the French Consulate had the ability to communicate the information to his parents?

All speculation...I'm just trying to figure out a scenario in which it would make sense that Melissa would find out before his parents, seeing as how she lived on an opposite coast and had been "out of the picture" for 4 years.

 

[SnowAngels]

...unless she had someone "following" him and reporting his moves to her (i.e. private investiagator). That's how she would find out first.

Ok, even that's a little too much of a conspiracy for me. WILD theory.

 

[SnowAngels]

That is the strangest part I found of the entire (strange) interview. She says "Yes" a little too quickly and emphatically, realizes she said "yes" a little too quickly and emphatically and then quickly attempts to recover herself.

Her eyes were darting EVERYWHERE. Then again, who knows how I'd act on national tv.

One of her first two sentences seems completely disconnected. She answers he has dual citizenship, then follows up w/ "He deserves a complete investigation by SF police"...

She seemed nervous and a bit defensive.

Again...maybe I'd act the same way on national tv. Who knows.

 

[WHITEFANG]

Could it have been Zamara who phoned Melissa?
Yes. However, he didn't find out until after work on Monday June 4.
Melissa had already called Casillas by 9:30am Pacific Time, 5:30am EDT to "confirm Hugues was dead,“ on the fourth.

The scalp hairs found in Hugues' hand suggests a fight.
Odd. No word on DNA analysis, as far as I know.

Melissa moved to California at the end of 2003. So did Hugues.

She attended the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, 11 years after she graduated from college.

She lived there until 2005 and then moved to Virginia for about a year.

She returned to San Fran in November 2006 in part to see if she and Hugues could make it work, and stayed there until 2009.

"So no one Oog knew was aware that he was dead. Not even his own parents. No coworkers, nothing. Yet this mystery caller whom Melissa refuses to indentify knew and subsequently so did Melissa."

Melissa says his boss and a friend called the SFPD on Sunday June 3. A number of Hugues' neighbors knew on the day of the murder, of course, but did they know her?

So, one of them may have called her.

But, how would they know how to reach her?
She lived in San Fran, but, she was somewhere on the east coast at the time of his death, she claims.

Also, why would anyone think of her as someone who should be contacted right away? Even she admits, "I did not know about his daily life or his friends or his plans when Casillas interviewed me.”

If true, it doesn’t make sense that someone reached out to tell her under those circumstances. If she had been in San Fran at the time, it seems unlikely she would have found out as quickly.

In my opinion, she was absolutely incapable of remaining passive while he enjoyed a very robust love-life. Not possible. Imagine she’s being interviewed about the case and suddenly he appears, walks over to another woman and flirts with her. Is she going to stay in the background while he chats-up another? That's what happened 24/7 for years.

It defies logic that the individual breaking the tragic news to her remains anonymous. THIS IS THE REAL MYSTERY. And, there is no reason for it.

 

[SnowAngels]

One would think Melissa would have been more extensively interviewed by the police, being an ex-lover and all....

 

[WHITEFANG]

I think she received a comprehensive review. The SFPD are not as inadequate as she says. The PI didn't find the murderer. Neither did the French team nor the L. A. cops.

 

[SunnieRN]

I just went thru google to see what I came up with and I was shocked to see an article about how he had pulled hair in his hands. That is the first I heard of that and now I will go back and try to find it. Did anyone else read that? Very interesting how it's not all over the papers. I read it on one article and that's it. Going now to find it again.

So, this should be simply solved? This is the first piece of evidence that HAS to be immediately analyzed and compared to any known friends, lovers, former lovers. Truly bizarre that the SFPD or the french investigative team would not have done that FIRST. Also, how could the SFPD have ruled it a suicide with hair in his hand? I am REALLY not understanding this?

After reading over the transcript:

The next day, Hugues had those plans to ride with Zamara.

"I ended up going by myself because he didn't answer his cell phone," he said. "I recall stopping and looking around and just calling him and cursing him. 'Where are you? I can’t believe you are missing this. It's great out here.' Then I did the same thing the next day. I called him and he didn't answer."

On Monday, Hugues never showed up for work.

"I went to his house. And I saw, you know, the yellow tape. There was still blood outside. There was blood on the street as well," said Zamara.

"And what was your reaction?" asked Maher.


Could it have been Zamara who phoned Melissa? Was there any relationship there? But then again, why would he call her of all people if she'd been out of the picture for four years??? Did they have a friendship?

Just because yellow tape is up, doen't mean that Oog was murdered, without knowing the facts. It could have been a murder commited on his steps, a murder HE committed, or ?. What led him to automatically believe it was Oogs blood and that he was dead? Also, if Zamara called Melissa, why wouldn't he say that? If he worked with Oog, he should be fairly easy to find. Maybe we should ask him? This keeps raising my hinky meter. Was Zamara the friend seen with Melissa at the candlelight vigil?

Even if they have a relationship, Melissa and Oog had been ex lovers. A relationship between Melissa and Zamara would not be at all suspicious if they formerly knew eachother through Oog. Happrns sometimes. Jilted lover ends up with ex's friend. Seems to me they both need to answer a few questions.

Also, what about the white car in the street in front of the apartment, (now you see it, now you don't). You would think with all the modern technology available, they could pull the plate and question the owner.

 

[Steely Dan]

After reading over the transcript:

The next day, Hugues had those plans to ride with Zamara.

"I ended up going by myself because he didn't answer his cell phone," he said. "I recall stopping and looking around and just calling him and cursing him. 'Where are you? I can’t believe you are missing this. It's great out here.' Then I did the same thing the next day. I called him and he didn't answer."

On Monday, Hugues never showed up for work.

"I went to his house. And I saw, you know, the yellow tape. There was still blood outside. There was blood on the street as well," said Zamara.

"And what was your reaction?" asked Maher.

Could it have been Zamara who phoned Melissa? Was there any relationship there? But then again, why would he call her of all people if she'd been out of the picture for four years??? Did they have a friendship?

Colored by me.

He didn't see the blood when he went by Hughes' place beforre? :waitasec: