After several days of investigation, we learned that the child was viable. A murder investigation has been opened.
It was a macabre discovery that a jogger made on Monday, December 30, in Mably (Loire). Shortly before 1 p.m., this woman discovered a black plastic bag, which looks like a garbage bag, in which the body of an infant was located, on the green border which runs along the Roanne-Digoin canal.
An investigation was initially opened to “search for the causes of death”. The identity remains unknown. He was initially described as a girl, before an autopsy determined that he was in fact a boy. It was important for investigators to know whether the infant was viable at the time of birth, in order to know what investigation to pursue next. Indeed, if he had not been, the investigation would not have been carried out for murder. The child having been viable at the time of his birth, it was therefore the intervention of one or more people which caused his death. A murder investigation was therefore opened by the Roanne public prosecutor’s office, four days after the discovery of the body, said the public prosecutor, Xavier Laurent, in a press release issued Thursday January 2. It was entrusted to the interdepartmental direction of the Loire national police (DIPN42), in order to know the identity of the victim as well as the “circumstances and responsibilities involved in the death”.
A call for witnesses
According to the first elements of the investigation, the body was “hidden in the bag and immersed” in the canal. A call for witnesses was launched, since “the circumstances of the discovery of the body are such as to presume that people other than the witness who reported the facts were able to observe the presence of the body of the child, or at least of black bag in which he was found. Each testimony collected will allow investigators to get closer to the truth regarding the time at which the bag was left where it was found. Anyone with information is invited to inform the investigation service at 04 77 93 52 98 or at [email protected].