A dreaded outcome. THE lifeless body of Lina, this teenager who had disappeared for a little over a year in Alsace, was found on Wednesday October 16 “in a wooded and isolated area of the Nevers region” (Nièvre), announced the Strasbourg public prosecutor. “The body was immersed in a stream located below an embankment,” said Alexandre Chevrier. “Forensic expertise will be ordered”, he continued, “for the purpose of investigating the cause of death”. But already, investigators are certain that it is Lina’s body, thanks to genetic analyzes “carried out urgently” by the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN).
This is the meticulous analytical work of the IRCGN, coupled “to research actively carried out by gendarmerie investigators”as highlighted by the prosecutor, which made it possible to find the body of the teenager, whose cell phone had stopped working exactly at 11:22 a.m. on September 23, 2023. That day, Lina went on foot to the train station. Saint-Blaise-la-Roche (Bas-Rhin), along a small road, to take a train and join her boyfriend in Strasbourg. Eight days later, a judicial investigation was opened on charges of kidnapping and criminal confinement. More than 400 hearings were conducted and hundreds of vehicles analyzed. The investigators work persistently, in conjunction with the family.
Intense research and meticulous analysis are conducted. “The images from the video surveillance on the day of the disappearance made it possible to identify 13 different brands of vehicles, for a total of 260 vehicles. It was necessary to send the images from this video surveillance to the IRCGN laboratory to improve them and be able to use them “declared prosecutor Alexandre Chevrier during a press conference organized on September 19, almost a year after the disappearance. The magistrate emphasizes that it is a “considerable work”which required “time and patience”despite the urgency to find Lina.
After months of wandering and false hopes, analyzes revealed, on July 26, that the teenager’s DNA was found on ropes placed in the trunk of a car, a Ford Puma. An element that “tends to demonstrate that at one time or another, Lina was tied up”according to the prosecutor. The vehicle, stolen in Germany in August 2023, was seized five months later in Narbonne (Aude), following a refusal to comply by the driver, a forty-year-old named Samuel Gonin. Lina’s contact DNA was also found on a belt and in several places in the car, specifies Alexandre Chevrier. Her purse is retrieved from the glove compartment. Several kitchen knives, without traces of blood, were also seized. The teenager’s cell phone, however, was not found in the vehicle.
The investigators then took a close interest in the profile of Samuel Gonin, who became the main suspect in this case. Aged 43, he had been the subject “several psychiatric hospitalizations” and an exam “carried out a few days before his death” had put “evidence of a borderline personality disorder”according to prosecutor Alexandre Chevrier, who emphasizes that he was “perfectly responsible for his actions on a criminal level”. The magistrate further specifies that from the summer of 2023, he is carrying out “a life of wandering” et “consumes a large quantity of narcotics”.
After his arrest in Narbonne, this former carpentry teacher, who suddenly fell into delinquency, was sentenced on January 22, 2024 to 15 months in prison for refusing to comply. He must also be tried on July 22 for violent thefts committed in August 2023. But the trial never took place: on July 10, this father of two children killed himself at his home, in Besançon (Doubs), after leaving a letter. The prosecutor assures that“none of his writings refer to Lina’s disappearance.” In this case, he was never able to be heard, since the results of the DNA analyzes carried out in the vehicle came more than 15 days after his suicide. “On the day of his death, he was not aware that the Ford Puma had been seized by investigators”assures Alexandre Chevrier.
“All these elements tend to demonstrate [son] involvement in Lina’s disappearance”, underlines the prosecutor. Another aspect of the investigation goes in this direction: the analysis of the geolocation of the vehicle reveals that this Ford Puma was, on September 23, 2023, at 11:26 a.m., on the departmental road “in the very immediate vicinity of the place of disappearance”. A decisive element for the investigation which was not easy to obtain. “Samuel Gonin did everything to remain undetectable, he did not use any telephone lines between August and December 2023. He took care to deactivate the car’s GPS”which made “traditional techniques” analysis “inoperative”reveals Alexandre Chevrier.
If investigators finally managed to locate the Ford Puma in Bas-Rhin, “this is thanks to the use of the on-board multimedia system” and to a “particularly complex investigation”. They also become certain that he was alone in the car “at this precise moment”. So, since the summer, investigators have been examining, day after day, the geolocation of the Ford Puma. Thanks to the data extracted by the IRCGN, they retrace the route of the car stolen by Samuel Gonin.
The search continues at the various stopping points of the vehicle, on the route reconstructed by the investigators, from the closest to the furthest from the place of Lina’s disappearance. Thus, excavations were carried out in Alsace, in the Vosges, in Haute-Saône and in Morvan. Without success, until the discovery of the teenager’s body in Nièvre, in Sermoise-sur-Loire, during a new phase of research. The Ford Puma had been geolocated “at this location on September 24, 2023, the day after Lina’s disappearance”, the prosecutor confirmed Wednesday.
The Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office is not considering further communications, pending the results of the forensic expertise, eagerly awaited by Lina’s family, immediately informed of the discovery of the body. The lawyers of the teenager’s parents, Marylène Correia and Matthieu Airoldi, published a press release on their behalf on Thursday morning, expressing their “tremendous pain” and specifying: “Before giving way to contemplation, they remain awaiting reports from the experts dispatched to the site of the discovery.” The investigators continue their work, to finally try to obtain the truth about what really happened.
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