Mystery of missing French teen beauty queen deepens...

Police probing the disappearance of a beauty queen and her mother say they suspect foul play after it emerged her father's lover also went missing, in a new twist to a mystery that has gripped France.
 
The disappearance of the father's Brazilian mistress in 2004 emerged as a key part of the investigation and "made us lean towards a criminal theory," a source close to the probe told AFP on Friday.
 
Suspicions were first raised in July after 19-year-old Allison Benitez, who was due to take part in a high-profile regional beauty contest, and her mother Marie-Josee suddenly disappeared from their home in the southwestern city of Perpignan.
 
Earlier this month, just over three weeks after they went missing, the father and husband Francisco Benitez — a member of France's famed Foreign Legion elite army unit — hanged himself in his barracks after writing a suicide note proclaiming his innocence.
 
Then it emerged Benitez had been questioned over the disappearance in 2004 of his Brazilian mistress Simone de Oliveira Alves in Nimes — not far from Perpignan. She has not been seen since.

The investigation into her disappearance has now been officially re-opened on suspicion of "abduction and illegal confinement", according to Eric Emmanuelidis, a Nimes prosecutor involved in the case.
 
As for Allison and Marie-Josee, prosecutors in Perpignan say the search is ongoing but "as the days pass, the chances of finding them (alive) are dwindling".

Authorities have not yet officially linked the two cases, but suspect foul play in both disappearances.
 
Allison was due to take part in the Miss Roussillon contest, which takes place on Sunday and elects a representative for a region of the southwest who will then go on to compete for the title of Miss France.
 
A member of the jury announced on Friday that he had withdrawn from the contest, saying he could not go ahead when one of the candidates was missing.

According to her father's police statements, Allison and her mother left their home on July 14 with suitcases, without any explanation. The couple was in the process of separating.
 
Mother and daughter said they were going to the nearby city of Toulouse. But since then, their mobile phones have been turned off and they have taken no money out of their accounts.

Their case bears similarities with that of Simone, who went missing on the evening of November 29, 2004.

The Brazilian had no apparent reason to disappear and abandon her four children, just as it was strange for Allison to go missing before a beauty contest she was hugely excited about.
 
As with the 19-year-old and her mother, one of the last signs of life from Simone was a text announcing her departure.

In 2004, Benitez was stationed in Nimes, after a career that took him to the Gulf, former Yugoslavia and in parts of Africa.
 
By that time his relationship with Allison's mother was in trouble. People close to Simone say she did not know he was married, and disappeared after finding out.

Just like with Allison and Marie-Josee's disappearance, Benitez did not alert police for a while.
 
Then he told officers that he had quarrelled with Simone, she had left and sent him a text to say she was breaking up with him.

A source close to the probe said police officers were now paying special attention to Benitez's connections — particularly in the military — and to the army sites he had been to.

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