- Alsace police are searching for Lina, who has been missing for months.
In the case of Lina, the 15-year-old girl who has been missing for ten months in Alsace, the French police have launched a large-scale search operation following the discovery of DNA traces in a stolen car. So far, no trace of the missing person has been found, as announced by the Prosecutor's Office in Strasbourg in the late afternoon.
Investigators are treating the case as a crime. Numerous police officers have been deployed since the morning in the Bruche valley near the village of Saint-Blaise-la-Roche, as well as in the surrounding Vosges mountains, according to the newspaper "Le Parisien".
Teenager missing since fall
Lina, then 15, disappeared on September 23, 2021, on the three-kilometer footpath from her home to the train station in Saint-Blaise-la-Roche. From there, she intended to travel to Strasbourg to meet her boyfriend. However, investigators found that she never boarded the train.
The Prosecutor's Office in Strasbourg announced last Friday that they had secured a car in which investigators found DNA traces of the teenager. The vehicle was found to be in the vicinity at the time of the teenager's disappearance, as evidenced by GPS location data.
According to "Le Parisien", citing investigators, the stolen car was driven by a local petty criminal. The man is said to have taken his own life in Besançon in eastern France in early July, according to the BFMTV channel. Up until then, he had only been questioned by investigators in connection with the theft of the car.
Driver could have killed teenager
Investigators suspect, according to "Le Parisien", that the man may have driven past the teenager in September and offered her a ride. He is then said to have killed her under circumstances that are still unclear.
As reported by the newspaper "Vosges Matin", investigators deployed sniffer dogs in the villages of Senones and Moussey in the Rabodeau valley, just a few kilometers from where the teenager disappeared. It is possible that investigators have relatively precise clues thanks to the GPS location data from the car.
Due to witness statements, investigators had been searching for different types of cars during the search. Then, the car that the officers had located in southern France after a long search came into their focus.
The investigation into Lina's disappearance is being led by The Office of the Prosecutor in Strasbourg, who announced the discovery of DNA traces in a stolen car linked to the case. If the suspicions prove true, the local petty criminal, who had previously only been questioned about the car theft, could be a key suspect in Lina's disappearance and potential death.
