A 31-year-old man has been arrested after confessing to the kidnapping, possible rape and murder of a Spanish teenager in the French department of Lot-et-Garonne, in the southwest of the country, the local prosecutor’s office has announced.
The individual, identified only as ‘Romain’ and who had already been convicted of sexual assault in 2006, «quickly» confessed to the young woman’s murder. «I know why you are here,» he declared to the security forces who entered his apartment in the town of Marmande last Friday night.
The young woman’s family reported her disappearance the same evening when they noticed that she was returning late from the high school she was attending in the town of Tonneins.
The police device activated to find the teenager found through the video surveillance system «a vehicle that attracted the particular attention of the investigators,» according to the prosecutor of Agen, Olivier Naboulet, at a press conference reported by ‘Le Parisien’.
The images revealed to investigators that the young woman got into this vehicle, owned by the confessed killer, it is not yet known whether against her will or on her own. The Prosecutor’s Office has explained that it was the last time she was seen alive.
After his arrest, ‘Romain’ led investigators to the place where he had left the lifeless body of the Spanish teenager, an abandoned house in Birac-sur-Trec, ten kilometers north of Tonneins.
According to the media’s own sources, the man confessed to investigators that he had kidnapped and strangled the young woman after raping her — a fact that the Prosecutor’s Office has not yet confirmed — before disposing of the body.
Naboulet confirmed that ‘Romain’ «was prosecuted as a minor for acts of sexual assault and convicted for these acts on a minor, committed in 2006», to a sentence of fifteen days imprisonment «accompanied by a probation period of two years».
The prosecutor specified that the man «was not registered in the sex offenders’ file» and «was not subject to control measures».
