A 24-year-old man is being held by French police after authorities found a number of bodies washed up in the River Seine last week, with some showing signs of a violent death
A 24-year-old man is held by French police on suspicion of murder after four men were found dead in the River Seine last week.
Police are questioning the 24-year-old after the first body found was identified as a 40-year-old man, according to prosecutors. The man had only been submerged in the water a short time before his body was discovered on Thursday August 14.
The body was removed from the river when it was spotted by a passer-by near a bridge in Choisy-le-Roi in the south east of Paris. Police admitted “there’s a lot of questions” after the initial discovery.
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Police then searched the river later that day and extracted three more bodies in the vicinity. One victim had died by strangulation, with another also showing signs of a violent encounter.
The suspect is being held in Paris, however police have not revealed the extent of what he is suspected of.
Although the first body discovered last week was “relatively well-preserved”, the three other victims were in “a very advanced state of decomposition”, prosecutors said.
Authorities have found no clear link between the victims and it is possible they are unrelated crimes and the bodies were carried downstream by the current to the foot of the Choisy bridge.
“A man was taken into custody this morning on suspicion for multiple murders at the headquarters of the criminal brigade of the Paris judicial police,” the Créteil prosecutor’s office told French outlet Le Monde.
The first victim was identified as a man who lived in Val-de-Marne, east of Paris.
The other three bodies are reportedly all adult men and forensic examinations are being conducted to determine their identities and the cause and dates of their deaths.
All bodies that were recovered were found to be men. Three were found fully clothed while another was partially clothed.
Three of the men were of African descent and a fourth was of North African descent and are believed to have been in the river for numerous days. Their bodies were later taken in order for autopsies to be carried out.
A police source told BFMTV: “We’re not used to this kind of incident. It’s an act that raises a lot of questions. Was it criminal? Were these people drunk and didn’t survive the heatwave? Did they go swimming or drown?”
Should no link be established, it would be due to the flow of the river that could explain why they all appeared at the same location. The mayor’s chief of staff Bertrand Guillerm said the bodies could have drifted under during a high flow.