DNA of teenager and Samuel Gonin found on ropes

Portrait of Lina, 15, on the side of the road where she disappeared on September 23, 2023. FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP

Everything tends “to demonstrate the involvement of Samuel Gonin” in the disappearance of Lina, the teenager who disappeared a year ago in Alsace, declared the interim public prosecutor of Strasbourg, Alexandre Chevrier, on Thursday, September 19. The name of Samuel Gonin, the main suspect in the disappearance of the 15-year-old teenager, had surfaced at the end of July after the discovery of Lina’s DNA in a car he was driving.

At a press conference, the prosecutor said that Lina’s DNA and that of Samuel Gonin had been found on ropes in the trunk of the car, proving that she had been “tied up”. “Significant resources remain mobilized” to find Lina, assured Mr. Chevrier, noting that a “a number of questions are likely to remain unanswered following the death of Samuel Gonin”who committed suicide on July 10.

Lina disappeared late in the morning on September 23, 2023. She had left her home in Plaine, at the foot of the Vosges mountains, to go to the Saint-Blaise-la-Roche train station, about three kilometers away. She was supposed to take the train to meet her boyfriend in Strasbourg. Despite several searches in the following days, no trace of the teenager had been found.

On October 1, 2023, a judicial investigation was opened on charges of kidnapping and criminal sequestration. This long-term investigation took a turn on July 26, with the announcement by the Strasbourg prosecutor’s office of a “major breakthrough” : the discovery near Narbonne of Lina’s DNA in a stolen car. This vehicle was sought by investigators because it was not far from the place where the teenager disappeared.

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Samuel Gonin, 43, committed suicide on July 10 in Besançon. “I have lost my honor, my dignity, my humanity, I have to go. I don’t know how to control myself, it’s going too fast.”left in his last writings this man who should have appeared on July 22 for two violent robberies committed on August 25, 2023 in Besançon.

The World with AFP

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