A man aged 31 years old man has been charged by the authorities following the abduction and murder of a schoolgirl in France, barely a month after the killing of a girl in Paris sparked outrage.
The latest victim, who is a 14-year-old named Vanesa in French media, was reportedly snatched on her way home from school in the town of Tonneins last Friday in the rural Lot-et-Garonne region.
According to reports, a local Frenchman who had spent the day smoking cannabis in his car owned up to raping and strangling her before dumping her body in an abandoned building, local prosecutors said in a statement on Sunday.
While in custody, he disclosed that he had not planned the crime and did not know the victim, adding that ‘his acts were sexually motivated,’ the statement said.
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‘This man is overwhelmed by the seriousness of his acts. For the moment, he will stay in his cell and will meet experts who are the best placed to explain what appears completely inexplicable,’ his lawyer, Alexandre Martin, told the BFM news channel in an interview monitored by Africa Today News, New York.
The killer, named Romain Chevrel, lived with his partner and has a one-month-old daughter.
He was previously convicted of sexually assaulting children when he was aged 15.
Murders of schoolchildren are extremely rare in France and the killing of a 12-year-old girl in Paris in October caused shock and anger.
The victim was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered after school in a crime branded as “evil” by President Emmanuel Macron.
The case kicked off a fierce political row because the alleged killer was a mentally disturbed Algerian woman, in France illegally and the subject of an expulsion order.