Did the KGB Kill One of Britain's Top World War II Scientists?

Jack Drummond was one of the best-known and respected British scientists of the 1940s and early 1950s. During World War II, he worked for the British government and helped devise their rationing system for the war years, an effort that he was later knighted for. After the war was over, Drummond left the government and began working for a pharmaceutical company.

In July 1952, Drummond and his wife Ann and their 10-year-old daughter went vacationing in southern France. On the night of August 4th, they decided to camp on the banks of the Durance River. The next morning, a local man found Drummond and Ann shot to death near the river, and police found their daughter near-by, her skull smashed in by a rifle butt.

The family of the man who found the dead Drummonds was immediately suspected. They were the only family in the area, and their alibis were full of holes. The father, an illiterate 75-year old farmer named Gaston who used a walking stick, eventually confessed to the crime. He claimed that he had seduced Ann, and panicked when Drummond discovered them. He said that he shot them both, and then killed their daughter too, whom he said watched the murders take place. Gaston, however, later recanted, and most of the French public didn't buy his absurd, hole-laden story. He was released from prison in 1960, although he was never officially pardoned and cleared of the murders.

So there are essentially two other theories about who killed the Drummonds. The first is that Drummond was a British spy, and had been killed by the KGB. As the autopsy would show, he and his wife had been shot by two different weapons. Ann hadn't been sexually assaulted before her death, and nothing was stolen from the scene, save Drummond's camera. Furthermore, the Drummonds had camped on a very strange spot, near a chemical factory. What were they doing in this area to begin with?

The other theory is that they were murdered by a bizarrely diverse criminal gang made up of a Greek, a Spaniard, and a Swiss. A German driver who had once worked with them, Wilhelm Bartkowski, told the police in Germany a few years later that they had bragged to him of killing an English scientist.

So what do you guys think? Does anybody know more about the KGB theory? I had just read about this case today in a blog article:
*snip*

So I'm still googling around and looking for more information. There's a Guardian article here about the criminal gang theory:

www.theguardian.com...

And a BBC article that sums up the KGB theory:

news.bbc.co.uk...

there's no doubt that the KGB under Stalin was brutal and bloody and capable of 'outside liquidations'. Would be interesting to know what the Brits have on this guy; was he on their payroll? otherwise might just have been tragic crime encounter. (smugglers maybe)

I think it was just a brutal murder, nothing more. He was a scientist during the war and did what he did to help the allies win. Surely the KGB wouldn't go after him after the war. Would they?
As for the farmer, I suspect he knew who killed them and is either covering for them and taking the blame or was threatened by the someone like the KGB to take the blame, or else.

Interesting story though.

Very interesting read, It may have been just a tragic killing, but why smash the little girls head in, and shoot the other two adults, that was sending a message to someone or organization. It is very suspect that a scientist would take his family near a chemical factory to camp. If he was a spy, wouldnt he have been using a different name. To me, No One is just killed like that, so brutally, without some kind of motive.