This Saturday, September 30 in the morning, a security perimeter was installed, then lifted, along the RD350, after the discovery of bones “of an animal nature”. A “large-scale coordinated operation” was carried out this Friday, with the inspection of numerous vehicles.
[Updated September 30, 2023 at 2:11 p.m.] One week after the disappearance of Lina in Bas-Rhin, still no trace of the 15-year-old teenager. This Saturday, September 30 in the morning, after a report, a security perimeter was installed along departmental road 350, close to the place of disappearance of the young girl, announced the public prosecutor of Saverne, Aline Clérot, whose BFMTV echoed this. Dispatched to the site, after the discovery of bones, a forensic doctor from the Strasbourg forensic institute “formally” identified them as being “of animal origin”. After the identification vehicle left the scene, the security perimeter was lifted.
Also, the “large-scale coordinated operation” which began this Friday must continue on Saturday. Indeed, a report had been received by the gendarmes relating to a blue French car having traveled on the departmental road where Lina disappeared. According to Le Parisien, around ten cars were inspected in several towns around the place of the disappearance, and samples were taken. Furthermore, DNA traces were notably found on a vehicle in a property located in Bellefosse (Bas-Rhin). The operation, carried out since Friday morning, continued into the evening. According to information from Latest News from Alsace, houses, a supermarket and the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche Recycling Center were also inspected.
The prosecutor indicated Friday evening that the search will continue “in the coming hours.” “Carried out by the Strasbourg research section and the Bas-Rhin gendarmerie group, they relate to information useful to the investigation which still needs to be verified,” said the prosecutor, Aline Clérot. The checks which take place could be linked to the recordings of the video surveillance cameras of the Breux pond in Saint-Blaise-la-Roche. The pond is located between Lina’s house and the train station she was traveling to. It is bordered by a cycle path that she could have taken before disappearing.
The 15-year-old teenager disappeared on Saturday September 23 in Bas-Rhin, near the town of Plaine where she lives, while she was walking to the station to join her boyfriend in Strasbourg. The girl never boarded the train and left no trace of her passage. However, the gendarmes were mobilized in large numbers, there were more than 80 of them searching the area on Thursday, September 28, to find “all types of clues” or the start of a trail.
Investigators are calling on all people who were present near the site of the disappearance, particularly near the ponds which were surveyed on September 27, to contact them on 03 88 97 04 71. They hope to obtain information likely to help the investigation move forward. investigation. Several testimonies have already been collected and “have been the subject of in-depth verifications throughout the national territory” according to the Saverne prosecutor, Aline Clérot.
Despite the days that have passed since Lina’s disappearance, the teenager’s parents remain hopeful of seeing their daughter again. “We fight, we fight, we continue today, tonight, every moment,” assured Fanny, the young girl’s mother, on BFM TV on September 28. Once again, she thanked all the kind people and those who provided help, but she also addressed the rumor mongers: “To those who spread nastiness on social networks, false rumors […] You realize that the test is difficult enough as it is, without having to add to it. […] Stop inventing and assuming things that are false.”
An investigation into a “disturbing disappearance” has been opened and the circumstances of Lina’s disappearance are still unknown. The gendarmes determined that the young girl never boarded the train which was to take her to Strasbourg and traced her back to halfway between her home and the station, along the RD350. Two witnesses claimed to have seen the young woman walking along this road. One of them, the former mayor of the commune of Plaine, told BFMTV that when she returned to this path a few minutes later, Lina “was no longer at the side of the road”. And the former councilor remarked: “So, hitchhiking or not, that’s something else.”
The station near which the teenager vanished is located in a rural area where it is common to “walk three kilometers” according to the mayor of Plaine, Patricia Simoni, contacted by the 24-hour news channel. The councilor adds that if the station is “located “in a place where there are not too many houses and where there is a little bit of traffic”, it “is not a cut-throat”.
The possibility of an accident was considered, but the public prosecutor specified that “no trace on the road suggesting a road accident” was found on this path. As for a possible runaway, the hypothesis is ruled out by Lina’s parents and, a priori, by the prosecution who affirmed in the first days of the investigation that the young girl had “no family problems” and had never run away before.
Lina had an appointment in Strasbourg with her boyfriend to eat at a restaurant and go shopping according to her mother’s instructions. She “left the house around 11 a.m. to go to the station.” It was the young man who was the last to have heard from Lina thanks to a message received at 11:20 a.m.: “a video of her telling me that she was happy to come”, he explained to of LCI/TF1. The teenager then gave no more signs of life. The young man then called Lina’s mother “to tell her that there was something strange.”
A friend of Lina, Margaux, also noted oddities on BFMTV. According to her, the teenager was particularly happy to go and join her boyfriend, however, after sending a message to say that she was leaving her home, the young woman would have been much more discreet than normal. “Usually, she used a lot of vocals to speak and then, suddenly, she was writing very quickly, in small words, it was very worrying, it wasn’t like usual, we felt it when she spoke” analyzes Margaux. On a daily basis, “Lina is a young girl full of life, she is bright, she is sunny, she wants to enjoy life,” assured her mother.
Since Lina’s disappearance, searches and searches have been organized on the three-kilometre-long path which separates the teenager’s home at the station and the surrounding areas, notably the forest and ponds. But no trace of the teenager has been found, despite the deployment of helicopters, drones and dog teams including Saint-Hubert dogs renowned for their scent.
If the field investigation has so far yielded nothing, telephone and banking data have not made it possible to find any clues either. Lina’s phone “was not found” and the mobile stopped transmitting at 11:22 a.m. on the day of the disappearance, according to the magistrate. Since Saturday, no banking activity has been observed on the young woman’s account. On Friday, investigators targeted the same type of vehicle: dark-colored Renault Clios.
