This Tuesday, July 30, the investigation took a new turn. After the seizure of the vehicle in which Lina's DNA was found, the driver, and main suspect for the moment, committed suicide, Le Parisien tells us, greatly fueling suspicions about his guilt
14:45 – Lina's DNA discovered in a stolen car
These searches follow the announcement by the Strasbourg prosecutor's office indicating the presence of Lina's “genetic profile” in a stolen car, discovered in the south of France a few weeks earlier. This blue car, and its driver, had been in the investigators' sights since the start of the investigations. Nine months after Lina's disappearance, “there is hope of locating Lina, but there are so many questions behind it, where, when, how…” indicated Marylène Correia, lawyer of Olivier Delsarte, Lina's father, on Friday.
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Excavations began this Tuesday, July 30 in the Grand-Est region, to find the body of Lina, this young girl who disappeared in September 2023 in Bas-Rhin in Alsace, according to information from Le Parisien. Several investigators from the Gendarmerie Criminal Research Institute (IRCGN), as well as dog brigades and dogs specializing in the search for human bodies are here to help. stranded since this morning in the Bruche valley, the area in which the teenager mysteriously disappeared on September 23. An anthropologist and a georadar are also deployed on site.
These searches follow the announcement by the Strasbourg public prosecutor's office indicating the presence of Lina's “genetic profile” in a stolen car, discovered in the south of France a few weeks earlier. This blue car and its driver had been in the investigators' sights since the start of the investigations and the interviews of several witnesses, as well as the analysis of video surveillance and telephone images had allowed them to establish that the man was “not far from where Lina disappeared last September”, the prosecutor's office indicated.
The main suspect was suicide
The kidnapping trail, quickly favored by the justice system and the gendarmes, according to Le Parisien, describes this ;man like a "local thug", who allegedly kidnapped Lina when passing her on her way, without knowing her. This main suspect then allegedly killedé the teenager. And the analyzes of the car went in the direction of the gendarmes who suspected the criminal trail, ;an important step forward while the investigation has been slipping from the start.
However, investigators were unable to hear the driver who committed suicide shortly after the vehicle was seized, fueling suspicions about his guilt. He had not been heard by the police even though he had been identified as the individual behind the wheel when the car passed through the area where the teenager disappeared. It is a grey Renault Clio. According to several witnesses, the teenager had indeed gotten on board. Since the end of January, the gendarmes of the investigation unit had been interested in a man who was driving a grey Renault Clio. He had apparently approached young girls, in the weeks around Lina's disappearance. After the man's death, investigators were only able to look at his phone data and his car journeys. They still managed to establish a search perimeter, on which the searches are focused, this Tuesday, July 30.
An investigation that has been floundering for several months
As a reminder, Lina disappeared on September 23, 2023, late in the morning after leaving her home in Plaine, to take a train, at Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station and find her boyfriend in Strasbourg. Not seeing her arrive, the young man alerted Lina's mother. Several witnesses including the mayor of the village said they saw the young woman heading towards the station between 11:15 and 11:30. And the investigation revealed that her phone had stopped transmitting at 11:22.
At the beginning of the investigation, suspicions focused on Lina's boyfriend, but the police quickly cleared him. Last March, three men were taken into custody at seen before being released due to lack of “incriminating evidence”. And in May, a new lead was being investigated after a local business owner said one of his employees had disappeared in September, around the same time as Lina. The man in question had vanished overnight, even though he had been on a permanent contract with the company for twelve years. The company manager added that his employee lived “very close” to Lina's.
Teilor Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining Thesaxon , Teilor Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my teilor@nizhtimes.com 1-800-268-7116