The lifeless body of a 12-year-old schoolgirl was discovered in a trunk on Friday evening October 14, in the 19e arrondissement of Paris, announced on Saturday a source familiar with the matter and the prosecution, endorsing information from the independent journalist Clement Lanot. The trunk was found at the bottom of the building where she lived, said the prosecution.
The autopsy, performed on Saturday, determined that the girl died of asphyxiation, said a source close to the investigation. The first findings had reported wounds on the neck.
A few hours after the discovery of the body, four people were taken into custody, the prosecution said. Three were arrested near the scene and a woman in Bois-Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine). Their role remains to be determined, according to the prosecution. Two other people were also taken into custody, a source familiar with the matter said in the afternoon. An investigation was opened for the murder of a minor under the age of 15 and entrusted to the criminal brigade.
It was 11 p.m. on Friday evening when a homeless man reported to the police the discovery of an opaque box containing the body of the teenager, in the inner courtyard of a building in this arrondissement in eastern Paris. The body of the schoolgirl was concealed by fabrics, according to sources close to the file. Two carry-on suitcases sat next to the box.
Call for witnesses
The father of the teenager, caretaker of the building where the family lives, worried not to see her return from college on Friday at 3 p.m., had warned his wife who had gone to the police station to report his disappearance.
On her Facebook page, consulted by Agence France-Presse, the mother had launched a call for witnesses on Friday afternoon, describing her daughter. Two photos accompany this publication, one showing the teenager with long blond hair smiling. On the second, apparently taken from CCTV images, we see an unknown young woman entering a building. In her publication, the mother specifies that her daughter was seen “for the last time at 3:20 p.m. in the company of a girl we do not know” in their residence.