Hugues De La Plaza
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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. After an epic night of drinking, clubbing, and partying, the ladies' man returns to his San Francisco apartment for the final time. During the mysterious night, he was mortally stabbed. The killer left without a clue. The bloody apartment locked from the inside.

Is this a classic murder or an unusual suicide? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 97, the story of Hugues de la Plaza. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

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You can also help support the show by leaving us a positive rating with a review. Please continue to tell your friends and family who love true crime about us. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. The case we're covering this week on the show takes us to a popular Northern California tourist destination, a city that I know very well, San Francisco.

I've traveled and spent time in San Francisco over a dozen times over the years. My older brother Ryan lived there for years. I've done the San Francisco Marathon twice. I love everything about that city. But the city of San Francisco has its dark side. Violent crimes, robberies, suicides, and homicides.

On Saturday, June 2nd, 2007, San Francisco police officers were called to a Hayes Valley apartment on Linden Street. That morning, neighbors called the police to report a large amount of blood found on their neighbor's porch when they went outside to collect the morning newspaper. The apartment belonged to 36-year-old Oog de la Plaza.

When the police arrived at the apartment, they realized someone had locked the front door. So the only way to get inside was to break down the door. Once they got inside, they encountered a bloodbath. There was blood everywhere inside the small, tiny apartment. Across the floors, all over the walls.

Within minutes of entering the bloody apartment, the police discovered 36-year-old Hugues de la Plaza's body lying face up, covered in blood, and on the living room floor, dead. Hugues de la Plaza was born in France on June 11, 1971.

As an only child, he traveled the world with his parents. Besides travel, he loved art. In his 20s, Oog decided to leave France and immigrate to the United States, where he settled into San Francisco. While living in San Francisco, he got his dual citizenship and became a U.S. citizen. Oog started working for LeapFrog, an educational and entertainment-based company in Emerlyville, California.

He worked as a sound engineer. Oog seemed to be settling into American life just fine. He had a great job, he was personable, so he made a lot of close friends very quickly. He was also described as quite the ladies' man.

According to Oog's friends, he loved women. French women, American women, it didn't matter. And with a heavy French accent, Oog didn't have a problem landing a date with almost any woman he met in San Francisco. When the San Francisco Police Department arrived at Oog's apartment, there was blood everywhere. It looked like someone attacked Oog in every inch of the apartment.

Without looking closely at the evidence, it looked like Oog's death was a case that a detective could solve on their first day. It looked like a textbook homicide. There's blood on the front porch and there's blood everywhere inside. You've got the victim lying in the middle of his living room with multiple stab wounds. Case closed. Well, not so fast.

The more and more the San Francisco Police Department looked at the forensic evidence, the more and more they were left scratching their heads. So much of the evidence contradicted a homicide theory. So maybe this wasn't an open and shut homicide investigation. Could this case be a possible suicide?

The day before Oog's death, on June 1st, 2007, Oog seemed completely normal. It was a Friday, so he went to work at LeapFrog as usual. At work, he had lunch with a friend slash coworker, and he also had a date with a woman he met online that night. After the date, he texted a friend to say that the date didn't go so well. He said that they had a good time at dinner, they talked, but they were just better off as friends.

After the dinner date, Oog went to Underground SF, a bar and nightclub in the city, around 10.30 p.m. He went to Underground SF with his friend, Neil Zarama, to celebrate his recent job promotion at Leapfrog. At Underground SF, he was seen having fun, dancing, laughing, hitting on the girls. According to his friends, Oog was just being his typical, fun, loving self that night.

As the night went on, a couple more of Oog's friends showed up at the club to help celebrate with him. Again, everyone said that he was in a great, great mood that night. He was happy. According to them, they didn't notice anything about him to suggest that he was someone who might kill himself or that anything was even bothering him.

They said that besides being a little drunk that night, he had some drinks, he was having fun, he was just having a good time at the club. That night, he even told his friends how he was thinking about relocating to Argentina within the next couple months. So suicide? Suicide seemed to be the last thing on his mind, at least according to his friends.

By Underground SF's closing time that night, Oog told his friend that he would see him tomorrow. They had plans to go ride motorcycles together. So around 1.45 a.m., Oog walked out of the club. He joked with his friends that he was going to go look for a woman to sleep with on his way out. Then walked down the street headed towards his apartment alone. It was only about three quarters of a mile from Underground SF to his apartment.

Unfortunately, that was the last time anyone would see Oog alive, because about six and a half hours later, the San Francisco Police Department arrived at the apartment and discovered his lifeless body. Detectives interviewed a handful of Oog's neighbors about what they heard or saw the night before. One of his neighbors told the police that he heard a commotion that night, but he wouldn't describe the fuss as screaming.

The neighbor said that he heard a loud thud just as he was falling asleep. He said he heard Oog's front door open, then close, then open and close again. After that, he heard footsteps running down Oog's stairway. He listened to the door for the third time, then more footsteps, and then a thud. The neighbor said that it sounded a little weird, but it wasn't weird enough for him to pick up the phone and call the police.

He just figured that Oog was coming in and out of the apartment for some reason, or maybe he was looking for something he might have dropped while coming home from the club that night. The neighbor told the SF Police Department that he didn't see anyone suspicious walk up to Oog's door, and even though it was kind of weird for him to be going in and out of the apartment, it wasn't weird enough for him to decide to call the police.

At 2.06 a.m., surveillance cameras outside of Oog's apartment complex spotted him coming home from the club. Although the frame is only about a second, Oog appears to be alone. He's seen walking in the frame for a second and then walks out.

In the footage, you don't see anyone else walking with him. And throughout the rest of the night, no one else is seen entering or leaving his apartment, which is weird. How come no one else was caught on camera coming or going if someone had killed him? But it wasn't only the surveillance cameras that made San Francisco police question if Oog could have done this to himself.

When the police discovered his body, Oog was dressed in all black and had multiple visible stab wounds to his chest, stomach, and neck area. An autopsy revealed three significant and fatal stab wounds to his body. The first wound was a puncture to his abdomen, and the second was to his chest that punctured his left lung.

And the third was a deep vertical wound in the left side of the neck that severed several major blood vessels. Without immediate medical attention, without paramedics and doctors, any one of these stab wounds would have been fatal. Even though the stab wounds to Oog's body were severe, the forensic pathologists believed the wounds could have been self-inflicted.

According to Dr. Azar, the pathologist who performed Oog's autopsy, the location of his injuries were consistent with self-inflicted stab wounds. Oog was right-handed and all of the wounds to his body were penetrated to the left side of his body. So it made it entirely possible that Oog held the knife in his right hand to inflict the wounds to the left side of his body.

Dr. Azar noted a few injuries, specifically light bruising found on Oog's forearms, suggesting that these injuries might be defensive wounds. If Oog was fighting off his attacker holding a knife, he could have sustained some bruising to his forearms and hands.

Forearms and hands are perfect spots to find offensive wounds. But according to Dr. Azar, even though there was slight bruising, she didn't believe they were consistent with someone who had just engaged in a life or death battle. In other words, the bruising to his forearms and hands just weren't that bad and likely got on his arms some other way.

Dr. Azar also performed a full toxicology report. They wanted to find out what drugs, if any, were in his system at the time. Maybe he was under the influence of some sort of narcotic or some sort of drug that might cause him to hallucinate or something. But when the toxicology report came back, it was significant. Besides alcohol, they didn't find any other drug in his system. No heroin, no painkillers, nothing.

After the autopsy was complete, Dr. Azar came to a puzzling decision. She ruled his manner of death as undetermined. She couldn't say whether Oog was killed or if he inflicted those stab wounds himself.

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Three days after Oog's death, the forensic pathologist ruled the manner of death as undetermined. So the San Francisco Police Department continued its investigation. One of the first things investigators were troubled by was the apartment's locked front and back doors. Like I've mentioned, the only two entrances into Oog's apartment were locked from the inside. And right there on Oog's kitchen table, the police found the keys to the apartment.

Now, locked doors are unusual for homicide cases. If someone broke into his apartment and attacked him, you'd expect to find at least one of the doors unlocked. Or even let's speculate that Oog let someone inside of his apartment. That still begs the question, how did that individual leave the apartment while at the same time locking it from the inside?

The San Francisco Police Department also didn't find any evidence of a break-in or forced entry. The windows weren't broken. The locks were in perfect working order. Investigators didn't find anything inside the apartment to suggest someone broke in or someone wasn't invited inside. They didn't find evidence that someone could get out of the apartment without using the front door, which, of course, was locked from the inside.

Besides the overturned TV and a broken wine glass next to Oog's body, the police didn't find much evidence of a struggle inside the apartment, at least according to their investigators. The police also found Oog's broken watch underneath his body. The strap of the watch was ripped off from the watch's face. Based on the amount of blood throughout the apartment, you would assume that Oog was engaged in a battle for his life.

You would also think that he was running around the apartment doing anything and everything he could to get away from his attacker.

but the apartment was relatively neat. The only evidence of a struggle was the overturned TV and a few pieces of broken glass, as well as a broken wristwatch. Besides that, the coffee table was spotless, the kitchen was undisturbed, everything inside the apartment looked normal without any signs that this big life-or-death struggle occurred inside of that apartment. Then there was the blood evidence.

Early on, the investigators speculated that the blood evidence inside of the apartment didn't look like a struggle had happened. All of the blood stains found on the floors were circular in shape. Now, when blood hits the floor and makes a circular shape, this indicates to investigators that the blood fell directly to the ground, as if someone isn't moving, standing still, or is moving very, very slowly.

When someone is running or they're moving very fast, the bloodstains on the floor would be like an elliptical shape with tails. They look pretty different. But in Oog's case, all of the bloodstains on the apartment floor were circular, like he was standing still.

Crime scene experts didn't find any high velocity bloodstains throughout the apartment. All of the bloodstains on the floors suggested that he was moving very, very slowly as he moved from one room to the apartment to the next. Now, why is this blood evidence so significant? Well, it's important. It's important because it tells us that he walked around very, very slowly while bleeding to death.

The bloodstains would look way different if he had run around the apartment trying to get away from his attacker. But that's simply not the case here. All of the bloodstains were circular and round like they fell directly to the floor.

On the coffee table next to Oog's body, the police found his cell phone. It was sitting perfectly on the coffee table. There was no bloody prints on the cell phone, and cell phone records confirmed that no one made a 911 call that night. Now, this is another critical piece of evidence. If Oog's cell phone is found on the coffee table right next to his dead body, why wasn't there any blood on it?

Why weren't there any calls to 911 for help? The cell phone was found completely clean of blood or any type of fingerprint. There was no indication that he tried to call for help that night.

Next to the cell phone, the police also found a notepad. On the notepad, Oog wrote down two Latin quotations. One read, quote, live as if you were to die tomorrow, end quote. And the second one read, learn as if you will live forever. But of course, if this whole situation never happened and Oog was never found dead inside of his locked apartment, these quotations wouldn't mean a thing.

Nowadays, we're all guilty of posting famous quotes to our Instagrams or Facebooks, or sometimes we even write them down in our journals or our planners. And 99.9% of the time, they don't mean anything to us. Maybe a quote struck an emotional chord with us based on our mood that day, but that's pretty much it.

But because Oog ended up dying in such a mysterious way, many people are left wondering what he was thinking when he wrote those two quotes down. Now, inside of Oog's apartment, the police found two knives. Initially, investigators were like, cha-ching, maybe one of these knives is the murder weapon. Both of the knives found in Oog's kitchen were consistent with the injuries found on his body.

So theoretically, either one of these knives could have been the weapon used in the attack. But when investigators tested both of these knives, no blood was found on either one of them. They didn't find a single drop of blood on either of the knives, either on the blades or on the handles. Those knives never came into contact with human blood.

But this discovery didn't end the police's theory that maybe Oog killed himself. So their next question became, could he have cleaned the knives himself? Under this theory, Oog stabbed himself three times, then walked over to the kitchen, cleaned the knives, and then left them in the sink.

Or the police said that maybe after stabbing himself, he then walked outside on the front patio where he either hid or buried the knife. This theory would also explain why there was a significant amount of blood found on his front deck, his front entryway. Now, I know what you're thinking. How in the world could someone stab themselves three times fatally and then either clean the knife or get rid of it?

Mind you, he could, he would have to do this all while bleeding out to death. Well, if you ask the San Francisco Police Department, as well as the medical examiner, it's entirely possible. The murder weapon used to kill Oog has never been found. Never been found. To this day, we have no idea what knife was used. There was also evidence that someone had recently washed the two knives that were found in the kitchen.

So if you believe and you think into this theory, then either Oog stabbed himself and cleaned the knife off, or he ran outside and was somehow able to hide it so that the police never found it. But this theory also seems to match the blood evidence. The blood evidence suggests that Oog was moving incredibly slow around the apartment after being attacked.

So to the San Francisco Police Department's position is that this evidence is consistent with a suicide. It's also consistent with the non-bloody cell phone on the coffee table. You've got Oog stabbing himself to death, either cleaning or somehow otherwise getting rid of the knife. And as he's doing that, he's slowly bleeding out walking around the apartment.

That theory matches the blood evidence, and it also explains why he never used his cell phone to call for help that night. A person committing suicide doesn't call for help. Now, before I get to Oog's family and friends' reaction to the police's theory, there's one more piece of forensic evidence I want to talk about. I mentioned that there was blood all over the apartment. When investigators tested everything, all of the DNA belonged to Oog.

Only blood, hair, and DNA inside of that apartment belonged to him. The police did not find anyone else's DNA anywhere throughout the apartment, at least not at this point during the investigation. Now, if someone is involved in a violent attack such as a stabbing, it's common for the offender to suffer some sort of injury that causes blood.

If you can imagine for a second someone stabbing Oog at least three times, more than likely, more than likely, this individual is either one, going to injure themselves while doing the stabbing, like if the knife slips, or number two, they're going to leave some sort of DNA, blood, or hair behind inside of the apartment.

But the San Francisco police didn't find anything anywhere in the apartment. They didn't find any on the doorknobs or on Oog's body or clothing. Every shred of forensic evidence inside of that apartment belonged to Oog. There was no other biological contributor. Have you ever stopped and wondered what it would be like to be Muslim growing up in a post-9-11 world?

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Now let's talk about Oog's family and friends' reaction to this whole thing. Oog's parents, who still lived in France, were devastated by the news. What's tragic is that the police didn't even notify them about Oog's death until three days later. And the only reason why the parents found out was because Melissa Nix, one of Oog's ex-girlfriends, called to tell them. Oog was an only child, and he was incredibly close to his parents.

So when his mom and dad found out, it was earth shattering, not just because they learned their son was dead, but also because the San Francisco Police Department was considering his death as a suicide. This news came as a shock to his family, who never once suspected that he might be suicidal. His friends and co-workers also echoed this feeling.

The police interviewed dozens of people in Oog's life, and not one person said that he could have done something like this. That's until the police spoke to his ex-girlfriend, Melissa Nix. Melissa Nix and Oog dated for around four years and had recently broken up before his death. When the police sat down and spoke with Melissa, she shared with them some really interesting details about her ex.

One of the things she shared with the police was that Oog was into Japanese culture. Anything Japanese he could get his hands on, he was interested in. During their interview, Melissa reportedly asked investigators if he had done a Harry Caray. Now, the term Harry Caray refers to the Japanese word for self-disembowelment.

In Japanese culture, it's considered honorable for someone to take their own life in this way. The proper way of doing this is for someone to plunge themselves on a short sword into the left side of the abdomen, draw the blade laterally across to the right, and then turn the sword upward.

It was also considered incredible form to stab oneself again below the sternum, press downward across the first cut, and then finish it by piercing one's own throat.

Because this is an extremely, extremely painful and slow way to commit suicide, this method was a way for someone to demonstrate courage and for them to demonstrate self-control that they could do this to themselves.

Under samurai culture, this method also indicates one's seriousness or one's sincerity of purpose for what they're doing. It's like saying, hey, I am serious about committing suicide and this is how I'm going to do it.

So when Melissa Nix found out that her ex-boyfriend Oog was found dead with three stab wounds to his abdomen, neck, and chest, one of the first questions she asked was whether it had been a Harry Carey because she knew just how much he was into Japanese and samurai culture. Finally, when detectives asked Melissa if she thought that Oog might kill himself, she said...

Well, she said yes. She said based on what she's learned about how he died, he could have done this to himself.

Now later on, this is an important part, later on, months later, Melissa Nix would recant her statement that she told the police that she believed Oog would kill himself. In a 48 Hours episode, she told reporters that the police asked her leading questions during her interview and that she does not believe that Oog killed himself, contrary to what she told the police a few days after his death.

So after Melissa Nix's statement to the police about his Japanese culture fixation, the San Francisco Police Department's suicide suspicion intensified. Although they didn't find the knife, all of the forensic evidence seemed to point in the direction of suicide.

And now you've got an ex-girlfriend, someone who dated him for over four years, telling the police that his death is similar to this type of Japanese suicide. And that's on top of everything else that we've already talked about. The locked doors, the untouched cell phone on the coffee table, the blood evidence on the floor. Now the police certainly have to consider that this might be a suicide.

On the other hand, Oog's parents in France weren't accepting their son's death as a suicide. So eight days after his death, the De La Plaza family hired a private investigator to look into the case. The family hired John Murphy, a private investigator who worked in the city of San Francisco. One of the first things they pointed Murphy in the direction that Oog's death might be a homicide is the location of his apartment.

Where Oog was living wasn't located in the best or nicest neighborhoods of San Francisco. He lived on a quiet side street adjacent to one of the city's most dangerous districts known as the Western Addition.

When Murphy studied the route that Oog would have traveled that night from the underground SF club to his apartment, he would have had to walk right through the Western Edition. This means that maybe sometime during his walk home from the club that night, someone spotted him and started to attack him on the front porch of his apartment.

This story could explain why there was so much blood found on the front porch. Maybe he was attacked there. He tried to run inside of his apartment to get away and then ultimately succumbed to his injuries. But why would someone murder Oog? Everyone who the police and the family's private investigator spoke with only said nice things about him. He was funny. He was nice. He was a perfectly good guy.

But even though Oog was a sweet and friendly guy, his personality might have attracted someone who would want to kill him. Oog might have been a guy who got up early in the morning to go to work each day. But at night, when he clocked out from his shift, he was a guy who liked to drink. He liked to go out and he liked to date different women.

I mentioned earlier that Oog was sort of a ladies' man. Besides his long-term relationship with Melissa Nix, he was a guy who dated around a lot. Even on the night of his death, he was out on a date with a woman that he met online. And Oog didn't just date single women he met online. He had a reputation of dating a lot of women—married ones, divorced ones, single ones. It didn't really seem to matter to him.

He used his charm and was able to get almost any date he wanted to in the city. So was it possible that maybe he asked the wrong woman out and his death was somehow someone's revenge? Did he encounter a jealous husband who found out that Woo was with his wife? Or did he face a scorned woman upset when she found out that she wasn't the only person in his life?

So Oog's dating life became a possible theory as to who might want to kill him or cause him harm. Even though the police and private investigator had no idea who that person might be, and none of the evidence pointed to any particular woman or date. After spending hours upon hours on this case, the family's private investigator concluded that he believed Oog was murdered.

Even if the San Francisco Police Department disagreed, here's what John Murphy believes happened that night. After Oog arrived home from Underground SF, he ate dinner. We know he ate dinner because there was a half-eaten plate of food sitting right there on the kitchen counter.

After he ate, he used his computer for a little bit to visit dating and sex websites until 2.38 a.m. The computer records revealed his search history, so we know that he was on his computer until 2.38. John Murphy then believes that Oog stepped outside the front door of his apartment for a moment.

Then that's when someone stabbed him. Again, that could explain why there was so much blood found outside of the apartment. So after being stabbed and attacked by this mystery person, he ran back inside and locked the door behind him so that his attacker couldn't follow him inside. After a few minutes of pacing around the apartment in a daze, he eventually collapsed and bled out.

According to John Murphy, he didn't have a chance to grab his cell phone and call 911, which is right there on the coffee table. He said he didn't have a chance because everything happened so fast. He was basically ambushed on the front step of his apartment. And by the time he was somehow able to get back inside and lock the front door, he was in some sort of daze and collapsed within just a few moments.

Now, he supports his homicide argument by pointing out that there was no suicide note. Despite the writings found on the notepad on the coffee table, there wasn't a suicide note. Murphy also argued that Oog had no reason to kill himself. He had just gotten a promotion at work and he had money in the bank. Plus, he was planning to take a vacation back home soon.

So according to Murphy, he didn't find any evidence to suggest that he was suicidal. John Murphy shared his findings with the de la Plaza family, and the news created a firestorm. Within a couple of days, French authorities arrived in San Francisco on a rarely used treaty between the U.S. and France. Alongside French authorities, Oog's parents also traveled from France to California.

French authorities interviewed and interrogated 52 people during their investigation, all 52 people who they considered to be possible suspects. They also retested all of the evidence, including the knives found in the kitchen, as well as the blood found throughout the apartment.

Basically, when the French authorities came in, they started at square one. They didn't trust that the San Francisco Police Department did a good enough job the first time. So they retested everything they could get their hands on. And when they retested Oog's watch that was found broken underneath his body, they found something.

According to French authorities, they found unknown DNA on his watch band. The DNA didn't match and didn't belong to Oog, which means the DNA was left from some other source.

Now, the French authorities suggest that maybe Oog used his right hand, the arm that he uses his watch or the hand that his watch is on, to protect himself against his attacker. And that's how someone else's DNA got on the wristwatch. But to this day, to this very day, the French have been unable to match this DNA to anyone. Let's play devil's advocate for a moment.

Just because they found an unknown DNA profile on his watch doesn't mean that that has anything to do with his death. Just an hour or two earlier, he was at a nightclub. There could have been 100, 200 people who touched or bumped into his watch that night and left behind DNA.

How do we know if a female he was dancing with that night didn't touch his arm, touch his watch, and leave behind her DNA on it?

I think this DNA evidence is important, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's their nail in a coffin that this is 100% a homicide. I think it's strange that they found unknown DNA on his watch, but didn't find any DNA anywhere else in the apartment. All of the DNA and blood belonged to Oog. I also find it strange that his watch was found broken and found underneath his body.

After nine months of investigating, the French released a 2,000-page report. In the end, they concluded that it was a homicide. Based on the evidence, they didn't think Oog killed himself. But what does that mean? So the French say it's a homicide. What does the San Francisco Police Department say? The San Francisco Police Department's official position is that they have treated this case as a homicide.

They are continuing to investigate, and they are actively following up on any new leads that come in about Oog's case. But let's be honest, Oog's death isn't the only case that homicide detectives have to work on. The same week that Oog died, there were six other homicides in San Francisco. And without any solid leads or suspects, Oog's case isn't going anywhere fast.

In February 2009, Oog's family put up a $100,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest, and that amount remains untouched. As it stands today, Oog de la Plaza's death is considered undetermined. The medical examiner cannot say whether this is a homicide or suicide, and the knife used to kill him has never been found.

According to Dr. Amy Hart, a chief medical examiner, 2-5% of suspicious deaths nationwide can never be classified as a homicide or suicide. And sadly, Ougues de la Plaza falls in that category. Was this a tale of an unusual suicide or the perfect murder? The mystery continues.

Hopefully forensics one day will reveal the truth. To share your thoughts on the Oog de la Plaza story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales. Do you think his death was a suicide? Or do you think he was murdered? To find out what I think about Oog's death, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales.

After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share with you my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. To check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com. You'll want to check these photos out because I'll be posting photos that were taken from inside of Oog's apartment so that you can decide for yourself what you think really happened.

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Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

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If you'd like to become a producer of the show, head to our Patreon page or send me an email at Courtney at ForensicTales.com to find out how you can become involved. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you so much for listening. Your support means the world to me. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.