Europe

French police launch murder investigation after 12-year-old girl’s body found in suitcase

The victim, named as Lola Daviet, is believed to have been raped and tortured before being killed

Lola Daviet, the 12-year-old French girl found murdered in Paris. Photograph: Facebook

Kim Willsher in Paris
Mon Oct 17 2022 - 21:53

French police have launched a murder investigation after the body of a 12-year-old girl was discovered in a suitcase outside her home in north-east Paris.

The victim, named as Lola Daviet, is believed to have been raped and tortured before being killed.

On Monday, two suspects, a homeless woman, 24, and a man, 43, appeared before a judge in Paris. Two other people are reportedly being questioned by police. An official investigation was opened at the weekend for “rape committed with acts of torture and barbarism” and for “the concealing of a corpse”.

The principal suspect was allegedly caught on CCTV either accompanying or following Lola into the apartment building where the girl lived at about 3.30pm on Friday a few minutes after she left school. The woman was later seen by local people pushing a large plastic suitcase around the area.

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The suitcase was left outside an apartment block not far from the building in the 19th arrondissement where Lola lived with her parents, Delphine and Johan, who were the building’s caretakers. It was discovered by a homeless man on Friday evening. An autopsy carried out on Saturday found wounds to the throat; the public prosecutor’s office reported that the girl had been asphyxiated.

Lola’s father reported that she had disappeared after she failed to return from school, a short distance from their home.

The female suspect was staying with her older sister, aged 26, who lives in the same apartment block as the murdered girl and her parents. The second suspect is believed to be the driver of a vehicle that moved the dead girl’s body.

BFMTV reported that Lola’s body was marked with the numbers 1 and 0. Police told French journalists there were unsure of their significance but that there appeared to be no motive for the murder. The main suspect is reported to have been unemployed, living on the streets and suffering severe “psychiatric problems”. —The Guardian

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