On September 23, 2023, Lina disappeared in Bas-Rhin while she was due to take the train to join her boyfriend.
Although the investigation has made some progress, the 15-year-old girl has still not been found.
A look back at the key moments of a case over which there are still some grey areas
Follow the full coverage
Lina’s disappearance: investigation relaunched
This is a case that is still shrouded in mystery. On September 23, 2023, Lina disappeared in Bas-Rhin while she was due to take the train to join her boyfriend. This Thursday, the acting public prosecutor of Strasbourg, Alexandre Chevrier, declared that everything was tending “to demonstrate the involvement of Samuel Gonin” in the disappearance of the 15-year-old girl.
The name of Samuel Gonin, the main suspect in the disappearance of the 15-year-old girl, surfaced at the end of July after Lina’s DNA was discovered in a car he was driving. From the theft of the car in Germany to the suicide of the main suspect, here are the key moments in this case in which many questions remain.
AUGUST 24, 2023
The Ford Puma in which Lina’s DNA was found was stolen in Germany, in Freiburg, probably by Samuel Gonin, a forty-something who had broken ranks and suffered from psychological problems.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2023
At 9:23 Samuel Gonin is filmed in a gas station in Germany, where he steals fuel. He is alone in the car.
Between 11:20 and 11:26 the Ford was located on the road between Plaine and Saint-Blaise-la-Roche, in the immediate vicinity of the place where Lina, aged 15, had disappeared, and her phone stopped ringing at 11:22. At 12:23 the car stopped in Anould, in the Vosges, about forty kilometres from Plaine. It then made two other stops, in Saulx (Haute-Saône), and in the Morvan.
OCTOBER 1, 2023
A judicial investigation has been opened into the charges of kidnapping and criminal sequestration. Two investigating judges from Strasbourg are jointly seized.
JANUARY 22, 2024
Samuel Gonin was arrested near Narbonne for refusing to comply. He was released under judicial supervision. The Ford Puma was impounded.
EARLY JUNE
Investigators from the Strasbourg research section identified a suspect vehicle by cross-referencing videos: a Ford Puma. On June 26, this car, which is still impounded in Narbonne, was transferred to the National Gendarmerie Criminal Research Institute (IRCGN) for analysis.
JULY 10
Samuel Gonin commits suicide in Besançon. He leaves behind some writings, but without explicit references to Lina.
JULY 24
The first elements of exploitation of the vehicle’s multimedia system show that it was precisely at the place of Lina’s disappearance, in the period of time in which she disappeared.
JULY 26
The Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office announced that the “genetic profile” Lina was found in the Ford. For Strasbourg prosecutor Yolande Renzi, this “major advance should allow Lina to be located.”
-
Read also
Normandy: appeal for witnesses after the worrying disappearance of a Beninese heptathlon champion
JULY 30
Searches were carried out for several days in Anould, where the car had stopped an hour after Lina’s disappearance. Without result. Other searches were carried out in early August in Saulx, then in Morvan, where the car had also stopped on September 23, 2023. Again without success.
SEPTEMBER 19
The acting public prosecutor of Strasbourg, Alexandre Chevrier, announced that Lina’s DNA and that of Samuel Gonin were found on ropes in the trunk of the car, “which tends to demonstrate that at one time or another, Lina was tied up”. Lina’s handbag was also found in the glove compartment.
