GPS data from suspect’s car leads to girl’s body missing for a year

The body of a French teenager who disappeared 13 months ago has been found after a lengthy police search on the other side of the country, where she was last seen, authorities said.

Police had been searching for the 15-year-old girl – referred to only as “Lina” in French media – since her mysterious disappearance on September 23 last year.

They had collected thousands of reports, conducted hundreds of interviews, and analyzed hundreds of vehicles.

But it was GPS data extracted from the alleged killer’s car that led to her discovery on Wednesday, in a wooded area in central Nièvre, about 310 miles from where she had disappeared in Alsace, in eastern France. country.

DNA analyzes made it possible to identify the body, said Alexandre Chevrier, acting public prosecutor of Strasbourg.

The location signal of the teenager’s smartphone was lost at 11:22 a.m. on September 23, while she was walking on a small road towards the station of Saint-Blaise-La-Roche, a hamlet of barely 250 residents, to take a train. in Strasbourg where she was to meet her boyfriend.

A week later, police opened an investigation into suspected kidnapping.

After months of fruitless investigation, police identified a car, a Ford Puma, that was nearby when Lina disappeared.

The vehicle was used by the main suspect in this case, Samuel Gonin, who died by suicide in July before he could be questioned. According to French radio RTL, Gonin left a farewell letter which said in part: “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.”

Analysis of the geolocation data of her car made it possible to identify several checks carried out by her, including the one carried out one day after Lina’s disappearance, which ultimately led to the discovery of the body. RTL, citing the prosecutor, reported that his body was found submerged in a stream under an embankment.

Post-mortem examinations, including an autopsy, will determine the cause of death.

General Daoust, former director of the French national police forensic laboratory, told RTL that “even if the body may be very degraded, it will provide a certain number of answers.”

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