Lola was seen following a woman into her building. Photo / BFMTV
Lola was seen following a woman into her building. Photo / BFMTV
Warning: Distressing content
Mystery surrounds the brutal murder of a 12-year-old French girl found in a suitcase near her Paris home, with numbers placed on her lifeless, bound body.
A murder investigation has been launched after a homeless man allegedly stumbled upon the case late on Friday night and found Lola inside.
She was earlier reported missing by her mother when she failed to return home from school.
She had suffered several cuts to her throat, her feet and wrists were bound, and there was tape around her face.
French broadcaster BFMTV also cited a police source who said that the numbers 1 and 0 had been left on her body, placed by a “device” rather than painted on or cut in.
A post mortem found that she died of asphyxiation and blood splatter indicated that she was alive when she was bound with tape.
CCTV footage showed Lola walking into her building behind a woman who was later seen pulling the suitcase.
Lola's mother posted an image of her daughter to Facebook. Photo / Supplied
One local told BFMTV he saw the woman dragging the suitcase around.
“We saw her go into the building, she was all alone... we saw her half an hour later with a suitcase, she was speaking a bit with everyone, she seemed to be a bit crazy,” he said.
“She was struggling to carry the suitcase, we thought it was because it was heavy items and she was quite slim - we never thought it was a body... It was 5pm and she was walking around with that suitcase, she even left it outside a cafe and went to the bakery opposite to buy a croissant as if nothing had happened.”
Le Parisien reported that the CCTV footage had been seen by Lola’s father and others who had initially joined the search for her.
“We see Lola inside,” a neighbour who saw the footage said. “But the little girl is not alone. She is accompanied by a woman in her twenties. The lady makes a gesture to her as if she were telling her to come,” adding that “Lola didn’t look reassured at all.”
Four people have been taken into custody, including the woman seen on CCTV and the man who found Lola.
