A man who confessed to the murder of an eight-year-old girl tried to take his own life on Wednesday night, according to news channel BFM TV.

"/> A man who confessed to the murder of an eight-year-old girl tried to take his own life on Wednesday night, according to news channel BFM TV.

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CRIME

Child murder suspect attempts suicide

A man who confessed to the murder of an eight-year-old girl tried to take his own life on Wednesday night, according to news channel BFM TV.

Published: 10 November 2011 09:02 CET

The young girl, Océane, went missing on Saturday evening after going to visit a friend in the southern village of Bellegarde, close to Nîmes. 

Her body was found in a nearby vineyard on Sunday morning after an extensive search involving police and 300 volunteers.

She had been sexually molested before being suffocated and had also been stabbed four times.

The 25-year-old local man, named Nicolas, walked into the village police station oon Tuesday evening saying he couldn’t remember what he had been doing on Saturday evening. He claimed he was drunk and had “blacked out” and asked police to run DNA tests.

Test results confirmed that traces of DNA found on the body of the girl matched the man, named only as Nicolas. 

Local newspaper Midi Libre reported on Thursday that the man met Océane as she returned home from a neighbour’s house on Saturday evening.

He offered to give her a lift back to her parents’ home but instead drove her out of the village where he killed her.

BFM TV reported on Thursday morning that the man, a father of three children, had tried to commit suicide while in custody on Wednesday night.

3,000 people, including the parents of Océane, marched through the village on Wednesday in the girl’s memory.

“We will never forget Océane,” said the girl’s father. “We hope that something this awful never happens again to a child.” 

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CRIME

Two girls wounded in knife attack outside French school

An assailant on Thursday wounded two girls aged 6 and 11 in a knife attack close to their school in the east of France and was later arrested, officials said.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:33 CEST
Two girls wounded in knife attack outside French school

The 11-year-old was stabbed outside the school in the town of Souffelweyersheim, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, while the six-year-old was attacked by the same man nearby.

Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding the attacker did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services.

Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding the attacker did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services.

Both girls are being treated in a paediatric hospital. Parents were later in the afternoon allowed to pick up their children, who had been confined to the school in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

The attacker, born in 1995, was arrested in the area where he attacked the second girl, the police said. He no longer had the knife in his hand and did not resist arrest, it added.

The attack came as Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a series of measures aimed at cracking down on violence committed by schoolchildren against their peers. There was no indication so far that the attacker had a link with the school.

“I’m really scared. We’ve been reassured that the children are safe inside, but we don’t know when we’ll be able to get them back,” Sarah, a mother of an eight-year-old pupil, told AFP before the green light was given to collect the children.

“A friend called me. She saw the commotion in front of the school as she passed by. Her reflex was to call me so that I could pick up my son.”

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