“Suspect worked on the farm where the body was found”: unclear for the time being whether it is French Lyhanna (11), identification in progress | News

Is it Lyhanna? That’s what everyone wants to know after French investigators found a body Thursday on a farm near where the 11-year-old girl disappeared last Friday. The identification is in full swing. According to the Agen prosecutor, the clothes “resemble” the clothes Lyhanna was wearing when she disappeared. The outrage is enormous in France, because the main suspect has been charged three times for alleged rape or inappropriate treatment of minors, but has never been convicted.

This article is continuously updated with the latest information.

Lyhanna disappeared on Friday, May 29, in the municipality of Fleurance, in the southern French department of Gers, about thirty kilometers west of Toulouse. Detectives have now found a body near Puycasquier, a town with more than 400 inhabitants about fifteen kilometers south of the municipality of Fleurance.

It is not yet clear whether the body is that of Lyhanna. Extensive research is underway to identify the remains. According to the prosecutor of Agen, Olivier Naboulet, the body resembles that of a child and the remains are wearing clothes “resembling” those worn by Lyhanna at the time of her disappearance.

Naboulet said on Thursday that an autopsy would be carried out within hours to “formally identify the body” and determine the cause of death.

The autopsy will also reveal whether the victim suffered sexual violence, a gendarme told the AFP news agency. He added that collecting traces, clues, fingerprints or DNA from the site where the body was found could provide valuable information to Toulouse CID investigators.

“The grief and anger of the parents are indescribable. Pending the autopsy, this is a time of reflection and mourning,” said François Roujou de Boubée, the lawyer for Lyhanna’s parents. “The family would like to thank everyone who assisted in the search.”

The mayor of Fleurance, Gregory Bobbato, calls for dignity. “We are united in this ordeal and we will remain so. Our thoughts tonight are with all the victims, and especially with Lyhanna’s family,” the mayor told the gathered press this evening.

170 gendarmes were deployed on Thursday, on the seventh day of the search for the girl. The gendarmerie called on volunteer riders from a local riding school to search the wooded areas south of Fleurance.

The main suspect in the case is 41-year-old Jérôme B., the father of a friend of Lyhanna. He is the last person she was seen with: B. admitted to picking the teenager up in his car, but claims he dropped her off at the local swimming pool.

However, B.’s statements were previously described as “inconsistent and inaccurate”, according to the Auch public prosecutor. He handled the case until it was transferred to the Agen prosecutor. B. was suspected on Monday and placed in pre-trial detention.

On Thursday night, a source with knowledge of the investigation told BFMTV that B. had worked in the past at the agricultural site where the body was discovered. That would have been the reason the search was done at that location.

In the past, three lawsuits have already been filed against Jérôme, father of two. All three files revolved around the alleged rapes or inappropriate treatment of minors. Nevertheless, this did not lead to a conviction: the suspect has a clean criminal record.

Farmer Thierry Guilbert helped search for Lyhanna. He knows the farm where the body was found on Thursday, he told the BFMTV channel. “I worked for fifteen years for the farmer who has fields on either side of the silo. It is a remote silo that has been closed for a number of years, so no one comes there anymore.”

Guilbert described the location as a place with separate entrances and exits, in an area “with very little traffic” where it is not difficult to “go unnoticed.”

Audrey, the mother of a classmate of Lyhanna’s, tells BFMTV that B. showed up at her door last Friday evening: “He said to us: ‘A little girl is missing, Lyhanna. Have you seen her?'” she said. When she replied that they had not seen the missing girl, B left again. “He said he was going to take a look around,” the mother added. According to her, the suspect behaved “completely normally”, and only had “the concerned look” of someone looking for a missing girl.

The revelations in the case are causing quite a stir in France. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin finds the course of events completely unacceptable. “We are all appalled by this failure, which exposes our flawed organization and undoubtedly demonstrates, both within the Department of Justice and beyond, that we do not take children’s statements seriously.”

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu wants to hold an emergency meeting with the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs on Friday, according to the BFMTV channel.

Civil society is also making itself heard. “Seventy-three percent of reports of sexual violence against minors are dismissed,” Denis Roth-Fichet, secretary general of the Independent Commission on Incest (Civiise), told the French news agency AFP.

According to the committee, only seven percent of reports of sexual violence against children and three percent of reports of rape against children lead to a conviction. According to Roth-Fichet, in practice the French justice system has other priorities, such as the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.

He calls sexual violence against children the “neglected stepchild of the French legal system.” Roth-Fichet points to the commission’s figures, which he says show that the number of underage victims of sexual violence has increased by 156 percent since 2016.

The French Victim Support Federation is also making itself heard. The organization called on Thursday for a national forum on crimes against minors

According to the federation, “this case underlines the urgent need to strengthen resources dedicated to the protection of child victims, their support and the judicial handling of sexual violence,” the organization said in a press release.