Mystery as girl, 12, found dead in suitcase with numbers on her body
Police have launched a murder investigation after a young girl’s body was found bound in a suitcase in Paris with mysterious numbers on her body.
Citizens across the city were horrified after 12-year-old Lola was discovered on Friday night, several hours after her parents raised the alarm when she didn’t come home from school.
Since then, chilling details have emerged of how she was found with several cuts to her throat, her feet and wrists tied together and tape around her face, as reported by France’s BFMTV.
The numbers ‘1’ and ‘0’ had also been “placed” on her body with a “device.”
While officers say they don’t yet know what the numbers mean, a post-mortem examination has concluded the girl died of asphyxiation.
CCTV captures girl’s final moments
Lola was reported missing on Friday evening by her mother who claimed her daughter had been “abducted.”
In a Facebook post, Delphine Daviet pleaded with the public to “help us find her".
“Lola [was] last seen at 15.20 in the company of a girl we don’t know in our residence,” her translated post said alongside a photo from CCTV footage showing a woman walking into the family’s apartment building ahead of Lola.
Hours later the young girl’s corpse was discovered by a homeless man outside a block of flats, just a few streets away, in the city’s 19th arrondissement at around 11.30pm.
Police have since confirmed they uncovered signs of kidnapping inside the basement of the family’s apartment, the Daily Mail reported.
They are also reviewing another CCTV clip in which the woman pictured with Lola is seen standing outside the apartment block carrying a suitcase.
Officers believe it is the same suitcase the 12-year-old’s body was found inside.
They’ve since arrested the suspect, and her sister, who are both aged in their 20s, along with two others including the homeless man who found Lola’s body.
Woman seen with suitcase before buying a croissant
Local residents say they saw a woman dragging a suitcase away from the family's apartment building before she stopped to buy a snack.
“We saw her go into the building, she was all alone .. [then] we saw her half an hour later with a suitcase, she was speaking a bit with everyone, she seemed to be a bit crazy,” one person told BFMTV.
“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.”
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