The case takes place in the heart of Paris, but for a few days, the story of little Lola has toured France, and moved millions of French people.
Friday, October 14, the 12-year-old girl returns, as usual, on foot from her college, located in the 19th arrondissement of the capital. She enters her building around 3:20 p.m.… and disappears.
At 11:20 p.m., a homeless man reported to the police the presence of a trunk in the courtyard of the building where Lola’s parents lived. Inside, hidden under blankets, lies the dismembered and severely mutilated body of the young teenager.
Lola died of asphyxiation. She was also a victim of rape.
Very quickly, a neighbor of the family appears as the main suspect: it is Dahia B., a 24-year-old Algerian national, hosted by her sister in the residence.
In police custody, the latter, who was the subject of an obligation to leave French territory, declares that she dragged Lola from the hall of the building to her sister’s apartment, where she allegedly abused she.
“I grabbed her by the hair, I put her head between my legs […], I had an orgasm” – would have affirmed Dahbia B. in front of the investigators.
She would then have taped his face, before larding his body with several stab wounds. Dahbia B. also claims to have drunk blood from his victim after collecting it in a vial.
Statements that correspond to the findings of forensic pathologists. “These first elements, if true, indicate an act of exceptional gravity, with elements of physical and sexual violence which are very rare in women as in men”, underlines Dr. Jean-Pierre Bouchard, criminological psychologist, specialist in victims and aggressors.
In her first statements, in police custody, Dahbia B. assures that she would have attacked little Lola out of “revenge”. A few days earlier, the teenager’s mother, who is also the guardian of the building, would have refused to provide him with a badge for access to the residence.
But the investigators are studying other possibilities, in connection, in particular, with the mental state of the suspect.
However, at the end of his police custody, the psychological behavior examination of Dahbia B. did not reveal any psychological danger. She was indicted, in particular for murder of a minor under the age of 15 in connection with an assault committed with acts of torture and barbarism, then imprisoned in Fresnes prison.
Could she have a severe mental disorder?
For Dr. Jean-Pierre Bouchard, there are three hypotheses, to be taken with a grain of salt in this kind of business, “because there can be very different psychic realities depending on the person”.
But in general, according to the specialist, “someone who commits such a crime on a minor may seek, through the child, to reach other people, therefore in the form of revenge”.
Then, according to him, there are “delusional” type motives. “It is not frequent, but it can exist, in the case of mental patients who are delirious and commit a crime”, continues Jean-Pierre Bouchard.
Finally, there may be in the acting out “elements of perversion, a possible sadism, without there being a mental disorder leading to the abolition or alteration of discernment”, notes the expert. .
Difficult, for the moment, to say where the main suspect in the murder of little Lola is located. “I cannot comment on her condition, or say if this woman is a pedophile, because there are very specific criteria and it is necessary to be able to assess the person, but what seems certain is that the passage to act is not trivial, it is an extremely important outburst of violence”, adds Dr. Jean-Pierre Bouchard.
Could the motive for the sordid crime, of rare violence, be linked to a mental illness? Nothing is less certain, according to the psychologist.
For the expert, however, there is in the known elements of Dahbia B.’s acting out, “a form of rarity in hyper-violence, perhaps a pedophilic appetite, and the hypothesis of mental disorders , everyone thinks about it. But you have to check.”
The investigation, precisely, should look, in the coming weeks, on the psyche of the main suspect, in search of explanations for her terrible gesture.
“A psychiatric and psychological expertise will be carried out on this young woman, to analyze her personality, her way of behaving at the time of the crime, but also throughout her life. The time of justice is long, but necessary to have all the keys in hand. We must let the actors in the case do their job and not over-interpret”, assures the criminologist to Planet.
