French Tourist’s Mysterious Death in Marrakech Hotel Jacuzzi Remains Unsolved

What really happened in this jacuzzi? Why did a 34-year-old man who showed no signs of illness die in a few minutes? So many questions that are looping in Mélissa Lefèvre’s head, without answers. The 32-year-old restaurateur has been trying for a year to piece together the puzzle to understand what happened. It was on March 9, 2020 that the couple living in La Mezière near Rennes left for Marrakech. They were entitled to the desired relaxation moment until March 13, the day of their departure.

At 5 p.m., as they were waiting in front of the hotel pool for the taxi that was to take them to the airport to catch the flight back to Paris, Ludovic Lefèvre decides to go to the jacuzzi to enjoy the services that this hotel could offer him. And then everything goes wrong, confides his widow. "At 5:45 pm, he still hadn’t come back, the taxi was supposed to arrive at 6 pm. I went to see in the jacuzzi. My husband was at the bottom," says Mélissa, on the verge of tears, reports Ouest-France.

Without thinking, she jumps into the pool to pull her husband out of the water. "Impossible, he was like sucked in. Several people also tried. They had to turn off the suction to get him out of the water." Mélissa wonders about the causes of this accident, especially since her husband knows how to swim and loves to stay in the water. The hotel doctor comes to the rescue of the chef and gives him cardiac massages. He has him taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Mélissa, paralyzed, will learn the worst news of her life. "Madam, it’s over," they tell her at the emergency room. "I collapsed, I was alone 3,000 km from home, far from my children, my family. And my husband, there all alone." The last time she spoke to her husband, he was alive and eager to return to his children and his job. Seeing his body laid out in the morgue, she is assailed by a thousand emotions.

She had only one idea, "to return to France to join the children." Kelly, 13 today, and Melvyn, 10 and a half, remained with their grandmother in La Mézière. "I tried to find a plane on Saturday evening, but the borders were closed. Covid-19 had gone through there." It was chaos at the airport with worried passengers shouting their distress at the uncertainty. Mélissa finally got a flight on Sunday morning. Once in La Mézière, the young woman finds herself in quarantine, because of the pandemic, without being able to benefit from the warmth of her family. Ludovic’s body was repatriated on March 17 to Orly, then to the funeral home in Retiers the next day. He was then buried in the East cemetery in Rennes, in a temporary vault, pending the ongoing investigations, reports Ouest-France.

Mélissa, assisted by a lawyer, is looking for answers. "Did he have a heart attack? Was the jacuzzi defective? Why was it classified so quickly? What really happened?" So many questions whose answers could help the family receive insurance compensation. "They don’t know if it’s involuntary manslaughter or natural death," the lawyer explains. The justice system has been seized. "We are waiting for an autopsy."

But in the meantime, the 32-year-old mother finds herself alone facing the family’s expenses. A responsibility she has trouble containing. Mélissa had to move to Retiers, leaving the apartment she had shared for years with her late husband. A place full of unforgettable memories. Apart from the answers she is waiting for on the causes of Ludovic’s death, Mélissa has been fighting for nearly a year to bury him with dignity. It is only after these two stages that, with her children, they will be able to embark on the long and difficult healing process, according to the same source.