Seine River Murders: Two Arrested as Police Unravel Mystery of Four Bodies

The first suspect, arrested on Wednesday, August 20, is a 24-year-old man of Algerian nationality, homeless and in an irregular situation. According to the initial elements, he was occupying a squat on the banks of the Seine. He is currently being questioned for "murders in competition", a legal qualification that suggests that the investigators suspect him of several homicides committed separately. This regime allows the duration of his custody to be extended to 96 hours. A second man was arrested the next day, although at this stage, no public element makes it possible to establish a link between the two accused.

The case began a week earlier, when a RER C user reported the presence of a floating body near the Choisy bridge. The intervention of the police and the River Brigade led to the discovery of three other male bodies nearby: one near the quay, another held by branches, and a fourth drifting.

The identification of the victims is one of the major challenges for the investigators. Only one of the bodies, that of a man in his forties living in the Val-de-Marne, has been formally identified. The autopsy revealed traces of violence, which immediately oriented the investigation towards a criminal track and the opening of a judicial investigation for voluntary homicide. A judicial source indicated that the three other bodies were "extremely degraded", complicating the examinations. Scans have nevertheless been able to highlight lesions on a second body, leading to the opening of a second investigation for voluntary homicide. The priority for the investigators is now to determine the exact circumstances of these deaths and to establish any links between the victims and the two suspects.