Disparition de Lina en France: l'ADN de l'adolescente retrouvé sur des cordes, preuve qu'elle a été "ligotée"
Disappearance of Lina in France: the teenager's DNA found on ropes, proof that she was ‘tied up’.
Almost a year to the day after the disappearance of 15-year-old Lina in France, a press conference was held by the public prosecutor's office in Strasbourg on Thursday. The purpose of the conference was to review the progress of the investigation.
Everything points ‘to the involvement of Samuel Gonin’ in Lina's disappearance, Strasbourg's public prosecutor's office said on Thursday, adding that the DNA of the main suspect and that of the teenager who disappeared nearly a year ago in the Bas-Rhin region had been found on ropes in a stolen car.
‘I would point out that all the DNA isolated in this vehicle is contact DNA. No traces of blood were detected, so no blood was found inside the car’, he added.
The man who committed suicide in Besançon last July was indeed the driver of a vehicle geolocated at the very scene of the disappearance of the teenager, then aged 15, explained the acting Strasbourg public prosecutor, Alexandre Chevrier, at a press conference.
‘It appears that this vehicle was precisely at the place where Lina disappeared and that it was in the period when she disappeared’, he stressed.
The young girl's mobile phone had stopped ringing at exactly 11.22am on 23 September 2023, when she was walking from Plaine to Saint-Blaise-la-Roche (Bas-Rhin) along a departmental road.
However, ‘we have two geolocation points’ of the suspect's vehicle, ‘at 11.20am and 11.26am respectively, so in the immediate vicinity of where Lina disappeared’, said Mr Chevrier.
The vehicle, a Ford Puma, ‘was filmed by a camera near the rue des Princes in Plaine, on the day of Lina's disappearance, at 11.13am precisely’, he stressed.
Background
Lina disappeared in the late morning of 23 September 2023. She had left her home in Plaine, at the foot of the Vosges mountains, to go to Saint-Blaise-la-Roche station, around three kilometres away. She was due to take the train to meet her boyfriend in Strasbourg.
Despite several searches in the days that followed, no trace of the teenager was found.
On 1 October 2023, a judicial investigation was opened into the charges of kidnapping and criminal confinement.
‘The investigations established that Samuel Gonin was the driver of the Ford Puma on the day of the events, 23 September 2023’, said Mr Chevrier.
The suspect stole petrol at precisely 9.23am from a service station near Freiburg in Germany. ‘He was alone on board at that precise moment’, said the prosecutor.
‘There is absolutely no doubt about Samuel Gonin's identity and the fact that he was alone at that precise moment, i.e. around two hours before Lina disappeared’, he said.
The long-running investigation reached a turning point on 26 July, when the public prosecutor's office announced a ‘major breakthrough’: the discovery near Narbonne of Lina's DNA in a stolen car.
Despite several searches over the following days in the Vosges, Haute-Saône and Morvan regions, no trace of the teenager had been found.
Lina's DNA and that of Samuel Gonin were found on ropes in the boot of the car, ‘which tends to show that at one time or another, Lina was tied up’, according to the public prosecutor.
Substantial resources deployed
Lina's DNA was found in various parts of the vehicle: on the rear seats, on the seatbelt in the centre rear seat, and also on the red part of the right-hand rear passenger seatbelt buckle, according to Mr Chevrier.
Lina's handbag was also found in the glove compartment, ‘containing various items, a mirror, false eyelashes, false eyelash glue, the shell of her mobile phone and her headphones’.
Mr Chevrier said that ‘considerable efforts are still being made’ to find Lina, noting that ‘a number of questions are likely to remain unanswered due to the death of Samuel Gonin’, who committed suicide on 10 July.
There remains ‘one big black mark’ in this case, noted prosecutor Alexandre Chevrier. ‘What was he doing there?’ he asked at the press conference. The place where Lina disappeared is not a very busy road, so nobody knows what Samuel Gonin was doing there. And there is nothing to suggest that he had been there before. ‘There's nothing in common between Lina and Samuel Gonin. Apart from this meeting point,’ says Alexandre Chevrier.
The investigators are looking into whether he may have committed other acts, according to the prosecutor.
‘I've lost my honour, my dignity, my humanity. I can't control myself, it's all going too fast’, said the man who was due to appear in court on 22 July for two robberies with violence committed on 25 August 2023 in Besançon.
