People Living in Paris, France has been stunned by the shocking murder of a 12-year-old schoolgirl whose body was found on Friday in a container in the courtyard of her apartment building.
The girl, identified as Lola, had spent the day normally at school, but her father raised the alert when she failed to return home in the afternoon.
Later in the evening the presence of a transparent plastic packing box was reported at the foot of the apartment building – a residential block in the 19th arrondissement where Lola’s father is employed as a concierge.
Lola’s body was found squashed inside the container, hidden by a covering of material. Her hands and feet were tied and she was reported to have a gash on her neck, though the autopsy this weekend found she had died of asphyxiation. Two Post-it notes were also on her feet, one saying “0” and the other “1”.
Early on Saturday police arrested the main suspect in the killing – a 24-year-old Algerian-born woman named in the press as Dahbia B.
The woman was identifiable on a security video taken at the apartment building, in which she was seen entering the main door on Friday afternoon in the company of Lola.
Later she was seen leaving the building pulling a container and then acting incoherently on the street. One eyewitness said she asked for help in return for money from an “organ-trafficking affair”.
However, police said they did not believe this was a serious lead. Their most plausible theory is that Dahbia B, who has no fixed abode, is psychologically unstable and that her act was “gratuitous”.
Also in custody is a 43-year-old man who is believed to have ferried Dahbia B and the container in his car. Police think that, having been driven by him around the Paris suburbs, Dahbia B returned to the apartment building – where her sister also is a resident.
