In February 2025, the bodies of a retired British couple – Dawn and Andrew Seatle – were found at their home in southwest France. The circumstances in which their bodies were found lead to an investigation which we will get into now and we will run through the strange conclusion at the end.
Andrew Searle was 62 in February 2025 and Dawn was 56. The couple had been living in Musselburgh, Scotland and they had moved to France around 10 years ago. Andrew grew up in Sussex, England, and Dawn grew up in Eyemouth in the Scottish borders.
Dawn had worked previously as a project manager. Dawn’s son is actor and country musician Callum Kerr.
Andrew had worked as a fraud investigator. He worked in financial crime prevention for private companies, the Serious Fraud Office and the police.
During his career, he worked to take down global money laundering syndicates.
It included investigating individuals and groups who may have been barred from dealing in the UK due to links with terrorists and rogue nations – including Russia.
Andrew took an early retirement in 2015, after which he is believed to have run into financial troubles when his rental business was forced into liquidation in 2023.
In France, the couple lived in the hamlet of Les Pesquiès, south of Villefrance-de-Rouergue.
Many British people have made the move to the area.
This info is from the BBC:
This isn’t surprising: there are no official statistics but in the time I have been based in Toulouse, Foreign Office staff have told me at various times they believe around 30,000 Brits live full-time in the south west, making it the biggest British expat population in France outside of Paris.
Neighbors spoke about how the couple were friendly and integrated into the small community. Lydie, a butcher, sells her produce at local markets with her husband. Their property overlooks the Searle’s home, just a fallow field separates them.
“They were a great couple who smiled a lot and since I once lived in England I was able to talk to them in English,” she told me. “They were well integrated and every year invited everyone over for a party.”
On Wednesday February 5, 2025, Andrew could be seen on CCTV entering a tobacconist store in the nearby town of Villefranche de Rouergue at just before 6pm on Wednesday evening as the shop was closing.
Andrew seemed fine and happy in the footage. He purchased a chocolate bar and some lottery tickets. He walked out of the store and to his car outside, where Dawn was sitting and waiting.
Isabelle Palazy who served Andrew in the store would later say: ‘I just couldn’t believe it when I heard the news. He and Dawn were regular customers. He would come in every day and buy Fortuna Blue cigarettes.
‘That day he came in just before I was closing and he seemed perfectly happy, he was relaxed and he chatted and bought some chocolate and two lottery tickets.
‘Thinking that they were to die less than 24 hours later makes me go cold, I just can’t believe it. They were a lovely couple, always happy and chatting and they spoke reasonably good French.
‘He was working on his house, and he would come and buy chocolate bars here, KitKat and Kinder were his favourite.’
The following day, February 6, 2025, Dawn’s friend went to the Searle home with her dog. The couple had two dogs of their own and the women would often walk together. One woman, Bénédicte, said the couple were “absolutely adorable, we would often meet like this simply walking our dogs around the village”.
The friend discovered the bodies of the couple. Dawn was found out the front of the home. Some reports say she was naked, while others say she was in pyjamas.She had her jewelry scattered around where she was discovered. She was said to have signs of head trauma.
Andrew was hanged inside the home from a radiator and was found with a gag in his mouth.
Police were called and the scene was cordoned off. At the time, authorities said no weapons were recovered.
Media reports indicated that Dawn may have been trying to flee from an attacker before she was caught and beaten to death.
There was also evidence of a frantic search inside the property, with drawers and cupboards left open and furniture upended.
Police spoke to neighbors and some had seen Andrew looking agitated during a phone call the day prior to the bodies being found.
“I saw them the day before they were found, they were walking the dogs and Andrew was on the phone,” the witness said. “He was very agitated, and he was arguing in English, he just waved at me and then carried on.”
A friend of the Searles, Odile Marian, said Andrew had been worried about finding his garage door opened in the days leading up to the couple’s deaths.
“He had seen the door of his garage was open, although he was sure he had closed it,” she told the outlet. “So he was looking for who opened his garage. And he didn’t find who did it. We don’t know if it’s connected. Maybe it was him who left it open, but he was sure he had closed it?”
No neighbors reported hearing any noise or screams from the home. This led authorities to theorize that Dawn had been killed inside and dumped outside.
One investigator said: ‘What is very likely is that the victim was killed inside the house, with doors and windows shut on a winter’s night, and then her body dumped in the garden.’
It is believed that the killing was a ‘staged burglary gone wrong’.
The mayor of Villefrance-de-Rouergue, Jean-Sébastien Orcibal, told French television that the deaths were “clearly a homicide”.
He told the BBC that the cause of death was still unclear and he ruled out speculation that the couple had been killed in a burglary gone wrong. Mr Orcibal also said that he believed that their deaths were not a “family tragedy”, with a domestic dispute also among the possible theories for the deaths.
He added: “These people were well integrated into the village. [Mr Searle] was part of the festival committee a few years ago.”
The public prosecutor Nicolas Rigot-Muller said at the time that both “died violent deaths”, but added: “I cannot establish that either was a homicide. All hypotheses remain open.”
After the couple were found, Callum’s representative released this statement:
“At this time, Callum Kerr and Amanda Kerr are grieving the loss of their mother, Dawn Searle (nee Smith, Kerr), while Tom Searle and Ella Searle are mourning the loss of their father, Andrew Searle.
“We kindly request that their privacy be respected during this difficult period.
Andrew’s father Fred (88) flew to France and told The Sunday Times “We’ve got thousands of questions and very few answers.”
Due to the lack of a weapon discovered, media reports were full of speculation:
French police have revealed today that Andrew was discovered hanged inside the house with a gag in his mouth. There was no gun or knife nearby, suggesting he may have suffered a horrifying death by torture.
His wife Dawn was found nearby, naked and with a wound to the head. Her body was lying by the front door, just in front of the house, with jewellery scattered around her. The grisly details suggest she may have been trying to escape when killed by an unidentified intruder or intruders.
One theory was that they had been killed due to Andrew’s previous work history.
A source said: “A criminal enquiry has been launched and the fear is that the couple were murdered. They were very fit, and very popular locally, but there is a theory that they were being pursued by criminals from the United Kingdom. This is currently the prioritised line of enquiry, because Mr Searle was once involved in the fight against organised crime and terrorism.”
In April 2025, we learned that despite the bizarre scene in which the bodies were found, that the deaths of the couple were a murder/suicide.
Post-mortem examinations confirmed Mr Searle died from hanging, while Mrs Searle suffered “multiple blows to the head with a blunt and sharp-edged object,” according to reports. Prosecutor Fabrice Belargent told Sky News that “the analysis carried out does not so far show any evidence that a third party was involved.”
Post-mortem examination results show there were no defensive wounds on Andrew, nor any forensic evidence suggesting persons unknown touched him or Dawn.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/fears-brit-couple-were-tortured-34637927