About Hugues
On June 2, 2007, 36-year-old Hugues de la Plaza had enjoyed a rowdy and exciting night out with his close friends at the SF Underground Bar in the Lower Haight. His friends report he was drinking beer, hitting on women, making fun of the people he loved – everything that brought him joy. His eyes crinkled with laughter, and he was in an even better mood than usual as he just landed a considerable promotion at corporate toy giant LeapFrog involving sound engineering, which was his passion.
At closing time, Hugues hugged his friends and departed, quickly making the 10 minute, half-mile walk back to his apartment at 462 Linden Street. A very fuzzy security camera on Linden captured him arriving at his home, a triplex with 3 front doors. After heading in for the night, Hugues made himself a snack of peas and rice (crime scene photos show the unfinished meal), read his email, and his dating profile (dude was popular with the ladies). His last activity appears to have been checking out some real estate in Argentina, where he was considering purchasing property. Hugues was French with citizenship in both France and America, and he was hoping to travel more in the near future – hopefully bringing his parents along, whom he was very close to. He was their only child.
It is truly a tragedy that this man’s dreams were not to be achieved, and his family is left to suffer with many agonizing and unanswered questions.
The Crime
Sometime before 3 a.m., a half-dozing neighbor heard a “thud” come from de la Plaza’s unit.
“Then, as I was listening to noises, I heard [de la Plaza’s] door open and close, then open and close again a few minutes later, and then I heard footsteps running down the stairs,” Orion Denley, a hotel concierge, told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008.
It was a little startling, but Orion wrote it off as 3am-San Fran-neighbor noises.
“It didn’t sound like a scuffle going on at all,” Orion stated, so naturally, he went back to bed.
As previously stated, this was a triplex, with all 3 entrance doors placed right next to one another. The front porch was shared by all tenants. Early that morning, Hugues and Orion’s other neighbor went out to grab the morning newspaper off their welcome mat as they did every morning. Instead, they were greeted with a disturbing amount of blood. They screamed and called 911, running back inside to safety. Dispatch asked what happened, where the blood came from, etc., and all the neighbor could say was that they had no idea, and to come quick.
Within minutes, two San Francisco police officers arrived on scene. They skulked carefully around the back of the triplex after being unable to make entry through Hugues’ locked front door. The deputies peeked through the kitchen window and saw a lot more blood, so they kicked in the back door in order to gain entry as quickly as possible.
There, a disturbing scene was discovered.
De la Plaza was lying lifeless on his kitchen floor, having bled out. It appeared he had 3 stab wounds in the torso area, The front and back doors had been locked – bolted – from the inside. No windows were forced open. No rummaging around was done and nothing appeared to have been stolen. The most notable things about the scene were an overturned TV and Hugues’ broken, bloodied watch found on the floor under his body.
Interestingly, the scene documented that a notepad on a coffee table had scribbled two quotations derived from a Latin saying: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow,” and “Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Although there was blood all over, only de la Plaza’s footprints were found tracked through the house. He never called 911 for help, or banged on a neighbor’s door, or even a neighboring wall. And, of course, there were the doors being locked from the inside.
These factors contributed to the police thinking that Hugues must have, somehow, done this to himself. However, given his wounds, he would’ve bled out within 1 to 2 minutes and died – there was no time to get help (this is according to multiple coroners who’ve investigated). Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Venus Azar was the first coroner on the scene and was confused by all these factors. She also noted it didn’t appear that Hugues was moving in a quick, panicked fashion as victims who get stabbed tend to do. He was moving extremely slowly, perhaps due to bleeding out so quickly or perhaps because he was in shock (as the saying goes, everything happened so fast).
The SFPD began working off the theory that de la Plaza had taken drugs at the bar, come home and killed himself. However, a toxicology screen came back — there were no drugs in de la Plaza’s system when he died.
The knife was NOT located at the scene. How could it be a suicide if the weapon is missing? SFPD initially said, “We did find the knife,” but when it was tested, it only had stains from chopping tomatoes. The family’s disappointment, frustration, and resentment for the investigative team began growing.
Introducing Melissa Nix
A former girlfriend of Mr. de la Plaza, Melissa Nix, dated him for 4 years. They had only recently broken up, mostly due to the strains of having a long distance relationship.
“Hugues was the love of my life,” said Melissa. “Once you fall in love with somebody, there’s always a part of you that loves that person.”
Melissa is a reporter who lived in Virginia at the time of his death (she is now a reporter for the Sacramento Bee). They had always remained close friends regardless of any romantic side to things, and she is absolutely committed to getting justice for her dear friend and his family.
The week his death occurred, she flew to San Francisco and started her own boots-on-the-ground investigation. She couldn’t stand the thought of Hugues slipping through the cracks of America’s (deeply flawed) justice system, and she wanted to help and stand behind Hugues’ grieving parents. In fact, SFPD didn’t even call Hugues’ parents in France to let them know he was deceased. Melissa had to deliver the horrifying news to François and Mireille de la Plaza that their only son had died. His mother could not stop screaming.
Melissa has interviewed every acquaintance, colleague, girlfriend, hookup, family member, boss, landlord, roommate, etc that she can think of, and she has turned up absolutely no evidence that he had been contemplating killing himself. In fact, Ms. Nix said, he had been saving money for a trip (potentially to Argentina), and had been celebrating the job promotion with Leap Frog the night of his death.
The two things she thinks could’ve led to his untimely demise are this:
- De la Plaza loved women and dating.He wasn’t cautious about who he hooked up with; in the process, he may have drawn the ire of a jealous partner.
- He was also an occasional cocaine user, and Nix wonders if he might have gotten on a dealer’s bad side.
While the neighbor’s security camera captured a figure believed to be Hugues returning home, it does not capture anyone leaving his residence that night. However, this camera was motion-activated and blurry, and the year was 2007 (not exactly known as the year of high definition cameras). This camera, the neighbor said, did not always capture people coming and leaving.
France’s Involvement
French authorities got involved at the urging of Hugues’ family and friends, and they were extremely disturbed by the San Fransisco investigation (or lack thereof). It was obvious to them that Mr. De La Plaza got home from his night out, opened his door to his attacker, got stabbed 3 times (neck, chest, chest) in quick succession, and managed to lock his door to try and get to safety as his last action on this earth.Within the 2,000 page report released by officials on Hugues’ death, officially ruled Hugues’ death as a Homicide based on a second set of DNA markers on Hugues’ wrist watch which had been broken and left on the floor at the time of his murder. This fact also lent credence to the possibility of a struggle in Hugues’ apartment – which, if you take a look at the crime scene photos that can be spotted in my sources section, there certainly appears to be some signs of a struggle. Melissa Nix, Hugues’ family, AND the French authorities strongly feel that the efficiency of the attack — three quick, deadly stabs to the upper body — all suggests a perpetrator with a criminal history.
Lately…
The San Francisco Police Department is *allegedly* still investigating the case and will not comment on the cause of death, while his parents have repeatedly asserted that he was murdered. The “who” and the “why” are the big questions here: who could’ve done this to a man who was so well-loved in his community? Why would they do it? It could be a case of mistaken identity, or (as Melissa stated) a drug issue or a scorned lover (or lover’s husband etc).
If there are any leads in this nearly 20 year old case, SFPD hasn’t made them known.
In 2009, Mr. De La Plaza’s parents had a press conference on the steps of City Hall to announce a $100,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the killer.“I do find it regrettable that in order to see justice done, we have to offer money,” said Hugues’ father, Francois de la Plaza, a retired nuclear technician from the coastal Brittany region of France.
“I wouldn’t still be so upset about it if he hadn’t made such a difference in people’s lives and made life more fun and kooky. I’ve never met anybody like him,” Melissa explained emotionally.
In 2021, Melissa Nix flew to France to spend some quality time with Hugues’ parents – they are a family now, united in their grief and determination.
“It doesn’t ever go away. I think all we’re asking for is for it to be reopened as murder,” Nix says. “Just give us the dignity, stop gaslighting and call a spade a spade. It was a murder. Fifteen years have passed and it may never be solved. Can you at least give us that?”
The San Francisco Police Department has yet to comment.
Crime Scene Photos
(NSFW – TW: blood – not extremely graphic)
Sources
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-mystery-a-case-for-murder