Blois: the body of an 81-year-old woman found in a travel bag, her neighbor taken into police custody

She had been missing since Tuesday November 19. He's his son-in-law,”worried about not having any news“, who had raised the alarm, told France Bleu Touraine the Blois prosecutor, Charlotte Beluet. The body of the octogenarian was found on Friday November 22, in a travel bag, on the edge of the forest, around 5 p.m. near Saint-Gervais-la-Forêt (Loir-et-Cher).

“The smashed face”

The police were alerted by walkers who reported a bag on the edge of a woodon a path. Inside, police and doctors discovered the body of the old woman who had been wanted since the beginning of the week.

“Completely folded“, with “face smashed“, she would have received a priori”a very violent blow with a fairly massive object“, indicates Charlotte Beluet to AFP. The victim presents also significant wounds on the neck. “They look like wounds made with a knife“, specifies the prosecutor to France Bleu Touraine.

A neighbor in custody

At the victim's home in Blois, traces of blood were discovered by investigators, some of which were cleaned up. The neighborhood survey reveals the existence ofa dispute, about a water leak, between the octogenarian and a neighbor born in 1989. Placed in police custody, the latter admitted to having transported the body but denies any involvement in the death of his neighbor. “He explains that he discovered his neighbor lying at home and dead.“, reports the magistrate. “He would have cleaned everything up. He then allegedly transported the body in this suitcase“, all the way to the woods, relates Charlotte Beluet, “a journey of approximately three kilometers between the home and the place where the bag was discovered“, which the suspect allegedly traveled on foot.

With no criminal record, the 35-year-old man is still in police custody at the time of writing this Saturday afternoon. The Blois public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into intentional homicide. An autopsy must be carried out on Monday to establish whether the beatings were inflicted before or after the death of the octogenarian.