Always nothing. Despite a sector combed with a fine-tooth comb, bodies of water probed, vehicles inspected, interviews, still no trace of Lina, 15 years old, who disappeared in the Bas-Rhin a week ago.
On Saturday, “the house of a resident of Plaine”, already inspected on Friday, was searched again and seals were placed there in the early evening, according to the regional daily The Latest News from Alsace. This town of a thousand souls, located around sixty kilometers southwest of Strasbourg, is where Lina lives with her mother.
Several black briefcases
The accommodation was examined for “several hours” by criminal investigation technicians who came out with “several black briefcases”, according to the Alsatian newspaper, which could not specify whether one or more arrests had taken place. Asked by AFP, the public prosecutor of Saverne, Aline Clérot, did not react.
In the morning, on the basis of “information”, the gendarmes had already carried out “technical and scientific police actions on the side” of a departmental road, near the place of Lina’s disappearance, had indicated in a press release the magistrate. “Bones were discovered” but they were “formally” identified by a pathologist from the Strasbourg forensic institute “as animal in nature,” she added.
A high school student without history
A high school student with no history enrolled in CAP “personal assistance”, Lina disappeared last Saturday late in the morning. She was walking to the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station, three kilometers from her home, a journey she was used to making, to take the train and join her boyfriend in Strasbourg.
Two witnesses say they saw her walking along the departmental road around 11:15 a.m. A few minutes later, his cell phone stopped ringing. Since then, nothing more, despite the wanted notice launched the next day and the intense searches and investigations deployed since: citizen searches, bodies of water probed by gendarmerie divers, witness hearings have taken place all week, in vain.
A large-scale coordinated operation
Friday, a “large-scale coordinated operation” at “several points in the potential disappearance zone” made it possible to carry out “technical and scientific police actions on several vehicles targeted by the investigation”, indicated Aline Clérot. “These investigative acts will continue in the coming hours,” she added, without specifying whether these searches had led to the discovery of clues.
Between six and ten vehicles, depending on DNA And The Parisian, were verified on Friday. Searches aimed in particular at “owners of dark-colored Renault Clios”, according to the regional daily. Houses, a supermarket and the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche recycling center were also inspected, according to DNA.
A gray car
Relayed Saturday by The Parisian, the testimony of a 15-year-old girl and her father, also living in Plaine, could support the scenario, currently unconfirmed, of a vehicle in which Lina could have gotten into, voluntarily or not. The two witnesses thus mention the presence on the Monday before the disappearance of a man driving a “gray car”: according to the father, he honked at his daughter who immediately called him “in panic”.
The following Thursday, “around 6:00 a.m.”, the same car would have stopped near the teenager and the driver would have “started to get out of the vehicle”, pushing her to flee, they still told the Parisian. According to the father, his daughter was interviewed by the gendarmes.
Rumors on social networks
In addition to a great outpouring of solidarity — the citizen raids brought together several hundred people — Lina’s disappearance also sparked rumors on social networks targeting in particular Tao, her 19-year-old boyfriend, compared by some to Jonathann Daval , sentenced in 2020 to 25 years of imprisonment for the murder of his wife Alexia after having publicly mourned her disappearance.
Fanny, Lina’s mother, defended the young man this week on TF1: “It’s no longer possible, I can’t let it happen. Tao is suffering,” she said, visibly very distressed. “We don’t want all the nastiness,” she once again declared on Saturday to the DNA. “I have hope, I’m not giving up!” », added this nurse, separated from the father of her daughter.