Wedding mystery man dies in crash

SKI resort landowner Marcel Amphoux, 67, has died in a car accident a little more than a year after he and 42-year-old Sandrine Devillard got married in the Hautes-Alpes to boos and hisses from angry villagers.

His new wife – a Paris estate agent - reacted furiously after their wedding when she was cast as a “black widow” marrying the farmer just for his money.

Now her husband has died in mysterious circumstances and she is set to inherit his lands, with several hectares on the edge of the Serre Chevalier ski resort thought to be worth a fortune.

Locals said that Marcel, who was often seen in the same trousers and jumper for days on end and living “like a bear” in a house with no mains water or electricity, had been targeted by pretty blonde Sandrine, who they said was a ‘gold-digger’ with her eyes on his property at Puy-Saint-Pierre. Sandrine called him her “caveman”.

Gendarmes are investigating after he died after a road accident when he was a passenger in a car that crashed off the road and into a ravine. Two other people said to have been in the car with him escaped.