Ten days after Lina’s disappearance in Bas-Rhin, the investigation takes a new turn. The Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office, where the case is being investigated, opened a judicial investigation on Sunday “against X” for “kidnapping and sequestration not followed by a voluntary release of more than seven days”. Two judges responsible for investigating the case have been appointed. For the prosecutor, Yolande Renzi, this is a “change in procedural framework” marking “a new phase of the investigation which is now moving towards long-term investigations”. At this stage, “no avenue has been ruled out or favored,” added the magistrate.
To try to find the 15-year-old girl who disappeared on September 23, the gendarmes are setting up a regional investigation unit, as revealed BFM TV.
“It is a logical organization which allows, on a file which will last over time, to officially designate the support unit, here the Strasbourg research section, and the investigators who will work on it full time”, explains to 20 minutes a source close to the case. “To form it, we remove investigators from other investigation groups of the SR, such as the property crimes division or the personal crimes division. They will have the help of experienced investigators from other research brigades or other judicial investigation units, at regional or departmental level,” continues this source, adding that this type of cell makes it possible to obtain, generally good results.
Help from specialized units
The investigators of the research section “have other big cases in store that must not be abandoned, they are not only dealing with the Lina affair”, indicates to 20 minutes General François Daoust, former director of the IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie) and of the judicial center of the gendarmerie. “By setting up a regional unit, the commander of the gendarmerie region will detach investigators who will ensure continuity of investigations,” he specifies.
The cell may also seek assistance from other specialized units of the gendarmerie, and occasionally call on experts from the IRCGN or those from the behavioral sciences department. “They are not necessarily full-time within this unit,” underlines a person familiar with the matter.
“Find a common thread”
In parallel with this new dimension brought to the investigation, the mystery remains intact. Lina, an uneventful teenager, disappeared while walking to the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station, three kilometers from her home. A journey she used to make, to take the train and join her boyfriend in Strasbourg. And despite intense searches, citizen searches, surveys of bodies of water, checks of cars and combing a house, the 15-year-old girl remains nowhere to be found.
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. “The difficulty for investigators is to find a common thread,” underlines General Daoust. The gendarmes, he said, still have to carry out numerous telephone investigations to try to find “a vehicle or a person who passed by at that time and who will make it possible to find her”.