Two suspects – a man and a woman – will be arraigned Monday before an investigating judge in Paris on suspicion of involvement in Lola’s death. That 12-year-old girl disappeared from the apartment building where she lived on Friday, and her body was found lifeless in a suitcase a few hours later.
The two suspects were formally charged on Monday with “murdering a minor under the age of 15, combined with rape, torture and barbarity” and “hiding a corpse,” a source at the French court said. The prosecution has requested the arrest of the two suspects.
The main suspect is a 24-year-old woman who was arrested Saturday morning at the home of an acquaintance in Bois-Colombes, a suburb of Paris. The woman, said to be suffering from mental disorders, was seen on the CCTV footage of Lola’s building. According to French media, it is about “a marginal woman” who “lived as it was with good or distant acquaintances”. For example, just before the murder, she would have stayed a few days with her 26-year-old sister in the same building as Lola and her parents.
The woman was filmed with Lola just hours before her arrest by the security cameras of the apartment building in question. Then, at about 5 p.m., she is said to have been filmed again leaving the building, dragging a coffin and two suitcases. She was helped by her sister, although it is not clear whether the latter was aware of the gruesome contents of that coffin – presumably, the girl’s body was already in it at the time.
It is not clear what happened in the hours between the two recordings, and the judicial investigation should clarify this. The first findings would show that the woman acted alone, although a second suspect was arrested: a 43-year-old man who is suspected of having transported and sheltered the woman. The woman’s motive is not yet clear. The track of organ trade – about which some French media wrote – would have been removed by now.
Lola’s parents raised the alarm on Friday afternoon when their daughter did not come home after school, even though video footage showed she had entered the apartment building. A homeless man found the girl’s body several hours later in a suitcase in the courtyard of the building.
An autopsy performed on Saturday revealed that Lola had died of asphyxiation. Six people were initially arrested, but four of them have since been released.
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