The Vanished Heiress - Palais de la Mediterranee
In the autumn of 1977 the young heiress to this seafront casino, part of the Le Roux family empire, disappeared and was never found, months after selling her stake to a rival during the so-called casino war; after decades of trials the family adviser and her lover Maurice Agnelet was convicted of her murder in 2014 and sentenced to twenty years, though her body has never been recovered.
Sobre este lugar
The glamorous Palais de la Mediterranee, with its grand facade on the Promenade des Anglais, was once one of the great casinos of the Riviera and the centre of a bitter struggle for control of gambling in Nice. In the 1970s it was run by Renee Le Roux, whose family held the controlling share. Her daughter, a young heiress in her late twenties, held a decisive block of votes. Amid a rivalry known as the casino war, that daughter sold her stake for around three million francs to a competing casino owner, Jean-Dominique Fratoni, a deal brokered by Maurice Agnelet, who was both the family's adviser and the young woman's lover. In the autumn of 1977 the heiress vanished, and she has never been found. Her mother was convinced she had been murdered and spent decades pursuing Agnelet through the courts. He was acquitted, then convicted on appeal, a verdict overturned, and finally convicted again in 2014, when he was sentenced to twenty years. Because he was convicted, he can be named here.
Datos clave
- 1977 year — The heiress disappeared in the autumn of 1977 and was never seen again.
- 3 million francs — The sum she received for the casino shares that helped ignite the affair.
- 20 years — The prison sentence given to Maurice Agnelet at his final trial in 2014.
📍 Promenade des Anglais, 06000, Nice