The body of the young girl was found by the gendarmerie, on the indications of the suspect himself, in the night from Friday to Saturday inside a house located in the town of Birac-sur-Trec, at a sixty kilometers northwest of Agen, according to one of these sources.
Another source said the body was found in an “abandoned” house in this area.
According to the public prosecutor in Agen, Olivier Naboulet, the disappearance of the young girl had been reported on Friday by her parents who had not seen her return from college at midday.
The gendarmerie then exploited “the video-protection images of the city of Tonneins”, which put the investigators on the trail of the suspect, a 31-year-old man, explained the prosecutor.
According to a source close to the investigation, the video surveillance images used first made it possible to identify a vehicle and then trace its owner, a resident of Marmande in the same department, where this man was arrested and placed in police custody.
They did not, however, show the teenager getting into the vehicle in question, said this source.
The prosecutor did not confirm the modus operandi of the murder, or whether the suspect had confessed to the facts. He plans to hold a press conference on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. at the Agen courthouse.
Another source familiar with the matter told AFP that this man was already known for acts of a sexual nature dating back to a time when he was a minor.
According to BFMTV, he had not been sentenced to a prison term at the time and had subsequently committed acts of damage and theft. He did not benefit from socio-judicial follow-up.
According to judicial sources, the man in police custody was never convicted of rape.
The investigation was entrusted to the Marmande research brigade and the Agen detachment of the Bordeaux research section.
