Lina’s body was found almost 500 km from her home

The Prosecutor’s Office announced on Wednesday that the body of Lina, the teenager who disappeared more than a year ago in Alsace, had been found.

The remains of Lina, this 15-year-old teenager who disappeared in September 2023 in Bas-Rhin (F), were found on Wednesday in Nièvre, said the interim public prosecutor of Strasbourg, Alexandre Chevrier, in a press release.

The body was discovered “in a wooded and isolated area in the Nevers region”, almost 500 kilometers from where the young girl had disappeared. He was “immersed in a watercourse located below an embankment,” said the magistrate. He specified that the genetic analyzes carried out urgently by the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN) “made it possible to confirm that it is Lina’s body”.

“The Ford Puma vehicle used by Samuel G. (editor’s note: the main suspect) had been geolocated at this location on September 24, 2023”, the day after the disappearance of the young girl, the magistrate further detailed.

Forensic assessments “will be ordered by the investigating magistrates in order to determine the cause of death,” he continued.

“Active searches” had been carried out by gendarmerie investigators since the summer to find the teenager, who had not given any sign of life since September 23, 2023.

Her cell phone stopped transmitting exactly at 11:22 a.m. on September 23, 2023, while she was walking from her home in Plaine to the nearby station to catch a train and meet her boyfriend. in Strasbourg.

The 1^is October 2023, a judicial investigation was opened on charges of kidnapping and criminal confinement.

But it appeared in the investigation that a vehicle, a Ford Puma, “was precisely at the exact location of Lina’s disappearance and that it was in the period when she disappeared,” Alexandre Chevrier declared during of a press conference in September.

The suspect’s DNA and that of Lina had been found on ropes in the trunk of the car, “which tends to demonstrate that at one time or another Lina was tied up”, explained the prosecutor. In the glove compartment of the vehicle, investigators also found the young girl’s handbag.

“The investigations made it possible to establish that Samuel G. was the driver of the Ford Puma on the day of the events, i.e. September 23, 2023,” assured the prosecutor. This man, aged 43, committed suicide in Besançon at the beginning of July and was never heard by investigators in this case.

“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 family’s mourning,” reacted to AFP Matthieu Airoldi, lawyer for Lina’s mother.

“The family does not wish to react” after the discovery of the body, said Marylène Correia, lawyer for Lina’s father, in a press release. “Their pain is immense.”

“Before giving way to contemplation, they remain awaiting reports from the experts dispatched to the site of the discovery,” she continued.