Will the French be able to crack a case that has baffled SFPD investigators?
Text by Sarah Phelan
The mystery surrounding the death of Hugues de la Plaza began on June 2, 2007, when a neighbor noticed blood on the front porch of his Hayes Valley apartment. Two years later, friends of the 36-year-old de la Plaza, who had dual French and American citizenship, are holding a vigil to keep attention on the case, which, they believe, remains unresolved by the SFPD, because of failure of leadership at the highest levels of San Francisco city government.
And his grief-struck parents are offering a $100,000 reward for information on the case.
A January 2008 San Francisco Medical Examiner/Investigator’s report, concluded that the cause of de la Plaza’s death was “multiple stab wounds” but that the manner was “undetermined.”
“On 06/02/2007 at about 0810 hours a neighbor of the subject came out of his apartment to the front porch to collect his newspaper,” stated the report. “He noted a large amount of blood drops on the porch, a blood trail leading to the subject’s apartment, and blood dripping from the subject’s apartment door knob.”
After emergency services were contacted, police got into de la Plaza’s apartment by forcing entry through a back dead-bolted door.
“Investigation at the scene revealed the subject, dressed in cut away street clothing and shoes, to be supine in the front room of his apartment,” the investigator’s report continued. “There were copious amount of frank (sic) and partially dried blood on the floor and wall near him. A broken wine glass was noted on the floor of the front room. Bloody handprints were noted on the wall across from the subject. The door to the front room was dead bolted as well as the back door of the apartment where the police forced entry.”
But despite this gruesome scene, neighbors, friends and relatives felt that the SFPD decided early on that his death was a suicide. They point to questions the police asked and to parts of the Medical Examiner’s report, as evidence that investigators believed de la Plaza killed himself:
“On the coffee table in the front room was a bloody open lap top computer and notebook, devoid of apparent blood, with the following two sentences on the visible page: “learn as if you were to live forever” and “live as if you were to die tomorrow,” the investigator’s report stated.