Lhe feared the outcome of a case which kept the gendarmes in suspense for several months: the body of Lina, a 15-year-old girl who had disappeared in September 2023 in Alsace, was found on Wednesday near Nevers (Nièvre).
The body was discovered “in a wooded and isolated area in the Nevers region” (Nièvre), almost 500 kilometers from Plaine (Bas-Rhin), where the teenager disappeared on September 23, 2023, the prosecutor of the Republic of Strasbourg provisional Alexandre Chevrier announced in a press release .
He was “immersed in a stream that is under a dam”, specified the judge, adding that the genetic analyzes carried out promptly by the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN) “made it possible to confirm that it is Lina’s body.
Reminder of facts
The teenager’s cell phone stopped working at exactly 11:22 on September 23, 2023, while walking to the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station (Bas-Rhin) along a road branch to catch a train and join her boyfriend in Strasbourg.
On October 1, 2023, a judicial investigation was opened into allegations of kidnapping and criminal confinement. But the investigation revealed that a vehicle, a Ford Puma, “was located exactly at the exact location where Lina disappeared and that it was during the period of time that she disappeared,” Chevrier declared during a press conference last month.
A suspicious vehicle
“Active searches” have been carried out since the summer on the tracks of this Ford Puma, the geolocation of which was investigated by investigators. Excavations were thus carried out in Alsace, in the Vosges, in the Haute-Saône and in the Morvan during the summer.
The vehicle, which was driven by the main suspect in the investigation, Samuel Gonin, had been geolocated at the place where the body of the teenager was discovered on Wednesday, September 24, 2023, the day after her disappearance, indicated M .
Suspect’s suicide
Samuel Gonin committed suicide on July 10 at the age of 43 in his home in Besançon and was never heard by the investigators in this case.
“I’ve lost my honor, my dignity, my humanity, I have to go. I don’t know how to control myself, it’s going too fast,” said this man, who had broken his ban and fallen into drug addiction, in his last writings.He should also have appeared a few days after his suicide for two violent thefts committed on August 25, 2023 in Besançon.
The suspect’s DNA and the teenager’s DNA were found on ropes in the trunk of the car “which tends to demonstrate that Lina was tied up at some point,” it was further stated in September, Mr. Chevrier.
Cause of death to be determined
Forensic assessments “will be ordered by the coroner to investigate the cause of death” of Lina after her body was found, he said on Wednesday. In the glove compartment of the vehicle, investigators also found the young girl’s handbag.
“The period is very difficult for the family, my client is devastated, I have no particular reaction other than to ask you to respect the grief of the family,” responded to AFP Matthieu Airoldi, Lina’s mother’s lawyer.
“The family does not want to react” after the body was found, Marylène Correia, a lawyer for Lina’s father, said in a press release. “Their pain is immense.” “Before allowing room for reflection, they are still awaiting reports from the experts sent to the site of the discovery,” she continued.
