Mystery as missing girl’s DNA found in stolen car in major breakthrough almost a year after teen vanished in France
A MISSING French teen’s DNA was found inside a stolen car, marking a major breakthrough almost a year after she disappeared in France.
Lina, 15, vanished in September 2023 as she was making her way from her home in northeastern France to a train station just 3km away.
She was on the way to visit her boyfriend in Strasbourg almost a year ago on Saturday 23 when she vanished.
Lina’s phone went out of signal just after 11am and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
French cops launched into action and haven’t stopped searching for clues about what happened to the teen.
Today they uncovered her DNA inside a stolen car which was first found after she vanished in September, not far from her last known location, France bleu reports.
Officials said they are investigating how and why she got into the car.
They added: “This major advance in the investigation should make it possible to locate Lina.”
Her boyfriend first flagged Lina as missing when she failed to arrive at Strasbourg train station that weekend in August.
Police then saw she did not appear on any CCTV of the train she was supposed to be on.
French prosecutors previously said two witnesses saw her between 11.15 and 11.30am on her way to the station.
After she was reported missing a huge search was launched in the hamlet she lived in, around Champenay and Saint-Blaise-la-Roche.
Officials focused on a mountainous, wooded area between her home and the train station.
Soon a huge force of some 400 people were looking for her with police, volunteers, dogs, drones and a helicopter kitted out with a thermal camera.
Just a few days after Lina vanished her mum Fanny issued a desperate plea to press.
She said: “Around 11:20, she sent a message to her boyfriend, that’s the last time we had contact with her.”
Holding back tears, the emotional mum asked “anyone with information to contact the telephone number for the appeal for witnesses”.
Fanny, crying, said: “I want to find my daughter again, I want her to be close to me, it’s torture to no longer have your child close to you, it’s a great pain.”
