Lina's disappearance: why was the main suspect free at the time of the incident ?

Lina's search in the Vosges is progressing with difficulty without the suspect's testimony. The driver of the stolen car in which the teenager's DNA was found had not been charged following the immobilization of the vehicle and killed himself before being questioned by the police.

THE ESSENTIAL

• After the disappearance of Lina, 15, in September 2023 in the Vosges, major operations to find the teenager's body are underway. With the support of a military unit and several specialists, the gendarmes comb a perimeter defined using the telephone data of the current main suspect.
• The investigation took a new turn after the identification of a man, a certain Samuel G., aged 43. He is believed to be the main suspect in the girl's abduction. He is the driver of the vehicle that has been wanted since the start of the investigation.
• Last June, he was arrested driving a stolen car during a traffic stop and then released before investigators could establish the link between the car and Lina's disappearance.
• Already known to the police for several crimes including two violent robberies and refusals to comply, he had been diagnosed with a “borderline” personality disorder by the psychiatric expert from the Besançon public prosecutor's office who had noted the “dangerousness” of the individual.
• While he was due to be heard at this subject on July 22, he killed himself on July 10 at his home in Besançon, without the police being able to hear him. Today, some people wonder why he was not arrested immediately.

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19:54 – One of his victims testifies

The main suspect in Lina's disappearance was already known to the police for several thefts. One of his victims testified to BFMTV. Aged 93, Monique explains: “I was going to send a package at three o'clock in the afternoon […]. Afterwards, I met a lady I knew on the sidewalk, with whom I chatted.” The woman added: “I was walking quietly up my street and all of a sudden, I felt someone snatch my bag,” she described, explaining that she did not let it happen: “I held him back and then he dragged me. Then I fell on my knees, he pulled me onto the sidewalk, he was pulling me again and he made me fall on my arm, which broke. And then he took my bag and ran away.” The man was reportedly identified in the case two weeks ago.

The team mobilized to try to find young Lina has left the search area. It is not yet known whether any clues have been discovered or whether the search will resume on Friday.

19:18 – How the search is going ?

The search for Lina continued on Thursday, August 1. Eighty people are mobilized, including reservists, soldiers, the gendarmerie's Surveillance and Intervention Platoon and the motorized brigade. Access to the massif where the research was taking place was prohibited by a prefectural decree. The pouring rain disrupted the excavations, but did not stop them.

18:42 – The judicial investigation is “in a very active phase”

The search for young Lina has been underway for several days. According to a press release published by the deputy prosecutor of Strasbourg, Alexandre Chevrier, the investigation is “currently in a very active phase, with multiple actions underway to find Lina and determine the circumstances of her disappearance.”

18:01 – The suspect had called the police a few days before ending his his days

Already described as “unstable” by psychiatrists, the suspect is said to have made a worrying phone call to the police a few days before ending his life. “Come and get me”, he is said to have implored his interlocutor, reports L'Est Républicain.

17:35 – Why did the suspect commit suicide? ?

The main suspect in the case of Lina's disappearance, Samuel G., the driver of the gray car discovered by the police and in which Lina's DNA was found, committed suicide at the beginning of July just after his vehicle was seized, without even being questioned. Enough to fuel the hypothesis of his guilt, even if nothing indicates that he knew that the investigators had finally made the connection between the car and Lina's disappearance.

He was also due to appear on July 22, 2024 before the Besançon Criminal Court for acts of violent robbery, committed last August. Perhaps he wanted to escape his judgment ?

Arrested on June 17 in connection with the two robberies committed in 2023, Samuel G. admitted the facts to investigators. The day after his arrest, the Briançon prosecutor's office ruled on an appearance on July 22, to give the psychiatric expert time to carry out his assessment. While waiting for his appearance, the prosecutor's office placed him under judicial supervision, but the man gave himself up death 12 days before being heard by the courts.

16:49 – Lina vanished in a few minutes

Ten months after Lina's disappearance, investigators are continuing their search. One element had quickly intrigued them last fall: the time lapse between the moment the young woman was last seen and her disappearance. Indeed, several motorists who had passed on this road had assured to have seen the teenager walking towards the station between 11:15 and 11:30. One of them had even confided to having seen her on the way to home, but not seeing her again a few minutes later when he passed by the same place again. Similarly, Lina had sent a final message at 11:20 to her boyfriend whom she was supposed to meet in Strasbourg, while her phone had suddenly stopped transmitting at 11:22.

In a document submitted by the psychiatric expert of the Besançon public prosecutor's office, Samuel G. was described as “extremely depressed”. According to BFMTV, the professional had diagnosed him with a “borderline” personality disorder, that is, on the verge of a truly established psychiatric illness, and noted the “dangerousness” of the man who would later become the prime suspect in the case of Lina's disappearance.

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16:04 – A month before his suicide, he had confessed to having “lost his mind”

Having passed into the hands of the psychiatric expert from the Besançon public prosecutor's office, Samuel G. had declared that he had “lost his mind” from 2023, the date on which he stopped to work and committed two violent robberies, for which he was due to be tried this year. “I'm plummeting to the lowest point,” he added to the expert who had noted a significant consumption of alcohol, cannabis and cocaine.

15:50 – He was at large despite have been é stopé behind the wheel of a stolen car

Samuel G. was already known to the police when he was arrested. stop behind the wheel of a stolen car earlier this year. On this occasion he had been é heard by the police but was ultimately killed. released before being & re-examined again in June 2024. But à At that time, the investigators from the Lina cell had not yet expertly assessed the situation. the car and therefore did not know that it contained the DNA of the teenage girl kidnapped in September 2023. 

15:32 – Why the car only reappears now ?

Since the beginning of the investigations, investigators have been tracking this famous car that was seen on the CCTV when Lina disappeared, but they were unable to find it. They were only able to get their hands on it because the police seized it as part of a report of a stolen car. It was only after this that they realized that the car they were unable to find found was in a pound in Languedoc. According to La Dépêche, no information has been provided as to why the delay between the seizure of the vehicle and its return to investigators from the Lina unit was so long. given.

15:22 – The suspect's life before Lina's disappearance

Before being the main suspect in the Lina disappearance case, Samuel G. was a carpenter and then a carpentry teacher at a vocational and commercial high school, reports France Info. According to the media, the father of a separated family had joint custody of his children but moved and stopped working in 2023. The same year, he committed two violent robberies.

14:26 – What is the preferred lead by investigators in the Lina case ?

What happened on September 23, 2023, the day Lina disappeared ? This is what investigators have been trying to understand for almost a year now. As reported by Le Parisien, one scenario seems to be more favored by the justice system and investigators: the one according to which a man, who did not know Lina, stopped on the side of the road to offer to take her to the station, or at least walk her part of the way, while she was walking, before finally kidnapping her and killing her in circumstances that have yet to be clarified.

13:55 – The suspect had already attempted to commit suicide

Main suspect in this affair, Samuel G., who put an end to the crime his days on July 10 by hanging himself à his home in Besançon, had in the pasté several stays in a psychiatric hospital, report our colleagues from L'Est Républicain, who also specify that he had ;also already attempted to put an end to à his days. 

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Searches began this Tuesday, July 30 in the Grand-Est region, to find the body of Lina, the young girl who disappeared in September 2023 in Bas-Rhin in Alsace, according to information from Parisien. Several investigators from the Criminal Research Institute of the Gendarmerie (IRCGN), as well as canine brigades and dogs specialized in searching for human bodies have been deployed since this morning in the Bruche Valley, the area where 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 theory, quickly favored by the justice system and the police, according to Le Parisien, describes this man as a “local thug” who allegedly kidnapped Lina when he came across her on his way, without knowing her. This main suspect then allegedly killed the teenager. And the analyses of the car went in the direction of the police who suspected the criminal trail, an important step forward while the investigation has been stalling since the beginning.

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 having left her apartment. her home in Plaine, to take a train to Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station and meet her boyfriend at Strasbourg. Not seeing her arrive, the young man alerted her. Lina's mother. Several witnesses, including the village mayor, declared: having seen the young woman heading towards the station between 11:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. And the investigation revealed that his phone had stopped being used. to issue & 11:22 a.m. 

At the start of the investigations, suspicion centered on Lina's boyfriend but the gendarmes quickly cleared him of the blame. Last March, three men were arrested. placed in custody seen before being released due to incriminating evidence. And in May, a new track was available. the study after a business leader from the region explained what it was all about. that one of its employees had disappeared in September, the same period as Lina. The man in question had vanished into thin air. overnight while he had been on a permanent contract in this company for twelve years. The business manager added that his employee had not been able to do so. lived "very close" from Lina.