After an abduction alert was triggered, the body of 6-year-old Celia was found dead near the home of the child’s mother’s partner. The man is currently in police custody. Here’s what we know about the case.
Chelya was found dead within hours of her disappearance. The prime suspect, his former father-in-law, was arrested this Saturday morning.
An argument between Cella’s mother and her friend
Chelya’s mother called the gendarmes at 6pm on Friday to report that she had been attacked with a knife by her partner. She said she was able to get out of her house, but her partner, who is not the child’s father, was still with the girl. “The mother of Chelya, the victim of the first violence, is currently hospitalized, but her life is not in danger,” the Rouen lawyer said in a press release.
Was Chelliah also stabbed?
According to a source close to the investigation, the mother reported when she called police that her child also had stab wounds.
Triggers hijack alert
Police quickly issued a report of the kidnapping. “Chelya, 6 years old, European, medium-length dark brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a black unicorn dress, 1.10 m., disappeared from her home in Saint-Martin-de-l’ If, twenty kilometers northwest.” went Rouen noted the kidnapping alert press release just before 6 p.m.
Very quickly, suspicion falls on Chelya’s mother’s partner, and the authorities start looking for him. “She may have been abducted by her mother’s partner: 42 years old, 1.80m, very slim build, brown hair, blue eyes, traveling in a navy blue Golf registered 7189 WM 76,” police said.
An empty house, but no trace of the suspect’s car
When they arrived at the suspect’s home, the police found it empty and unoccupied. “Just after 10pm, a local resident helped locate the vehicle of the suspected kidnapper through a hijacking alert.
The body was found in the forest at night
More than a hundred gendarmes from Seine-Maritime and neighboring departments were mobilized, as well as mobile gendarmes, a dog team and a helicopter. Finally, a six-year-old girl was found dead in a tree near the vehicle of her mother’s 42-year-old boyfriend.
The search for the suspect soon ended
Considerable gendarmerie resources were used to search for the suspect, prosecutor Frédéric Teillet called on the residents of Saint-Martin-de-l’if (Seine-Maritime) in a press release published Friday through Saturday night. The play unfolded with “a great deal of awareness”.
This Saturday morning, gendarmes “found and arrested the main suspect around 6am” in a tree in Saint-Martin-de-the If, ”close to where his car was found”, a companion of the child’s mother. Gendarmerie.
Who is that man?
The couple was not reported for domestic violence. But according to a source close to the investigation, the man is known to the courts and has behavioral issues. The suspect, who is currently in police custody, is 42 years old.
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