Lina, 15, disappeared on September 23, 2023 in Bas-Rhin.
According to our information, his lifeless body was found on Wednesday October 16, 2024, in Sermoise-sur-Loire in Nièvre.
TF1info takes stock of what we know about these latest elements of the investigation.
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Disappearance of Lina: her body found in Nièvre
20 gendarmerie investigators mobilized full time, more than 400 hearings, thousands of procedural documents, hundreds of vehicles analyzed and, this Wednesday, October 16, what everyone feared: the discovery of the lifeless body of the teenage girl.
A little more than a year after Lina’s disappearance on September 23, 2023 at the end of the morning, while she was walking via a departmental road to the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station, in Bas-Rhin to go take a train and join her boyfriend in Strasbourg, her body was discovered during the day in the Nevers region in Nièvre, announced Alexandre Chevrier, interim public prosecutor.
His body found in the town of Sermoise-sur-Loire
According to our information, it was in Sermoise-sur-Loire, a town of 1,500 inhabitants, that the body of the teenager was found. This is more than 400 km from the place where she disappeared, in September 2023. The body was “found submerged in a watercourse located below an embankment”, “in a wooded and isolated area in the Nevers region”simply informed the prosecutor on Wednesday, without giving further details.
This Wednesday morning, at the request of the gendarmerie, the mayor of the commune, Manuel de Jésus, issued, according to our information, an order prohibiting access to an entire area of Sermoise-sur-Loire, an area including the plan of water where the body was found.
Why did the investigators go there?
Why did the gendarmerie investigators go to this town? Sermoise-sur-Loire is one of the towns crossed by the main suspect following Lina’s disappearance. “The Ford Puma vehicle used by Samuel Gonin had been geolocated at this location on September 24, 2023”the magistrate said Wednesday in his press release.
Samuel Gonin committed suicide on July 10, 2024 at his home in Besançon and was never heard by investigators in this case. That day he left a note for his family (new window)in which he did not mention Lina but simply said: “I have lost my honor, my dignity, my humanity, I have to leave, I don’t know how to control myself, it’s happening too quickly. I’m suffering too much, it’s better this way.”
The body quickly identified
“Genetic analyzes carried out urgently by the IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie Editor’s note) allowed us to confirm that it was Lina’s body.”certified the public prosecutor. The diligence in confirming the identification of the body demonstrates the significant resources mobilized on this case and the cutting-edge techniques used on this case by the investigators.
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Death of Lina: the key dates of the case
New forensic assessments, including an autopsy, will now take place to determine the causes of Lina’s death and whether she was the victim of a sexual assault.
According to our information, the public prosecutor could give a press conference in the coming hours.
