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CRIME

Tourists find murder victim in Père Lachaise

A group of American tourists had a horrific surprise this week when they stumbled upon the body of a murdered pensioner as they visited Paris’s famous Père Lachaise cemetery, the final resting place of countless famous figures such as Oscar Wilde and Doors singer Jim Morrison.

Published: 9 May 2014 13:47 CEST
Tourists find murder victim in Père Lachaise
The famous Père Lachaise cemetary in Paris where tourists found the body of a murdered man this week. Photo: Olivier Bruchez/flickr

Police arrested a 27-year-old man who lived in a district near the burial ground in the east of Paris just hours after the macabre discovery.

The Americans were visiting the popular tourist attraction on Wednesday when they spotted the body lying between two tombs. The dead man, named by Le Parisien newspaper as 66-year-old François Boudinot, had suffered several blows to the head but police said that the autopsy on the victim was not able to conclude that these had been the cause of death.

The victim lived in an apartment in the 20th arrondissement of the city just 400 metres from the historic cemetery, where he regularly went for a stroll among the elaborate sepulchers and tombs in its tree-lined alleys.

Police investigating the murder quickly went to the home of the 27-year-old suspect who had been arrested a fortnight earlier after a violent incident in the cemetery.

The suspect was named only as Eric N. by Le Parisien, which said that police found clothes with traces of what appeared to be blood in the apartment where he lived with his father.

One neighbour told the paper that the young man was “very polite and friendly” but that he often had shouting matches with his father.

The suspect was still in custody in Friday in police headquarters in Paris.

Situated on a hill overlooking Paris, the 110 acres of the Cimetière du Père Lachaise houses the graves of French and foreign figures such as the writers Balzac and Marcel Proust, the composer Chopin, and the singer Edith Piaf.

The tomb of the legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrison is one of the most visited. He died in Paris in 1971 of a suspected drug overdose.

by Rory Mulholland

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CRIME

French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

A 14-year-old girl has died of a heart attack in eastern France after her school locked down to protect itself from a knife attacker who lightly wounded two other girls, an official said on Friday.

Published: 20 April 2024 08:58 CEST
French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

The teenager “was rescued by teachers who were very fast to call the fire department. She died at the end of the afternoon,” education official Olivier Faron said.

The girl’s middle school in the village of Souffelweyersheim closed its doors on Thursday afternoon after a man stabbed two other girls aged 7 and 11 outside a nearby primary facility.

“Sadly this pupil underwent an episode of very high stress that led to a heart attack,” Faron said.

A mother outside the middle school on Friday morning said her son in first year of secondary had also been scared during the lockdown the previous day.

“Whereas in the primary school they made it more like a game, perhaps here it was a little too direct,” Deborah Wendling said.

“He thought there was an armed person in the school. They could hear doors slamming, but in fact it was just other classrooms locking down.”

Faron defended the teachers.

READ ALSO: Schoolgirl threatens teacher with knife as tensions rise in French schools

“There is no perfect solution,” he said.

But “we will analyse in depth what happened. If there are lessons to be taken from this, we will take them.”

The two girls hurt in the attack were discharged from hospital on Thursday evening with only light wounds.

Police have arrested the 30-year-old assailant, and a probe has been opened into “attempted murder of minors”, the prosecutor’s office said.

It was not immediately clear what had motivated him, but it did not appear to be “a terrorist act”, it said.

He was “psychiatrically fragile” and appeared to have stopped his medication.

The incident follows a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Thursday announced measures to crack down on teenage violence in and around schools.

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