DEATHS OF IQBAL Al-HILLI

On September 5, 2012, a shocking mass murder took place near Chevaline, France. A British tourist named Saad al-Hilli was traveling on a mountainside road with his wife, Iqbal, their two young daughters, Zainab and Zeena, and Iqbal’s elderly mother, Suhalia al-Allaf. Sometime that afternoon, their vehicle was ambushed near Lake Annency and riddled with bullets. Saad, Iqbal, and Suhalia were all shot to death. Zeena survived the attack by staying hidden, and Zainab was wounded but managed to pull through.



A French cyclist named Sylvain Mollier was also found dead at the scene, presumably at the wrong place at the wrong time. To this day, investigators have been unable to determine who was responsible, or what their motive might have been, and the shooting has been described as “the perfect crime.” If that wasn’t enough, the murders were also followed by an astonishing coincidence.

None of Iqbal’s family or friends knew this wasn’t her first marriage. In February 1999, Iqbal was working in the US and, in order to get a green card and remain in the country, she agreed to marry an oil worker named Jim Thompson. The marriage did not work out, and the couple split up the following year.

When Iqbal left the country, she eventually got remarried and started a family with Saad al-Hilli, but never told anybody about her previous marriage to Thompson. However, the marriage ceased to be a secret after a stunning turn of events. Mere hours after Iqbal al-Hilli’s murder, Jim Thompson suffered a fatal heart attack while driving through his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. Naturally, there was some suspicion of foul play, but it appears that Thompson’s death had no connection to his ex-wife and was nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence.