Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Frenchwoman found in shallow grave in London garden

British detectives were conducting a murder probe on Friday after finding the body of a Frenchwoman buried in a shallow grave in the garden of her London home.

Published: 9 March 2019 08:21 CET
Frenchwoman found in shallow grave in London garden
File photo: Leon Neal/AFP
The corpse of Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, 34, who reportedly worked as a film producer, was discovered in her back garden in southwest London on Wednesday.
 
She was reported missing after she failed to turn up for work on Monday, police said. She worked for the public relations firm Golin.
 
Police said that while a formal identification was yet to take place, Garcia-Bertaux's family had been informed.
 
Originally from Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, she graduated from the Central Saint Martins art school in London.
 
Her friend Daniel Hughes told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency that she had been due to meet a man for coffee on Sunday evening and was meant to move out of the house on Monday.
 
Hughes, who worked with Garcia-Bertaux at the Discovery Channel, said she lived alone with two dogs.
 
“She's tall, got a lot of presence. Always very friendly, very talkative, would never have hurt anyone,” he said. “Got a lot of confidence and passion, a lovely lady. She had a lot of friends as well.”
 
Actress Joan Collins, 85, who worked with her on the short film “Gerry” last year, told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “I'm shocked by the horrifying news. Laureline was passionate about film. I enjoyed our collaboration and thought she had a great future.”
 
Police said: “A forensic crime scene is in place. There have been no arrests.”

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.

SHOW COMMENTS