French girl missing is dead

This morning i woke up to a shocking news and another level of respect for the French police.

I have always admired the French police, their intelligence and hard work. I don't want to compare them to the Nigerian Police. I think it's a disrespect to the French Police to do that after all the terrible experiences i have had with the Nigerian Police, who get drunk with power.

Anyways, sometime in May, a five year old French girl named Fiona was announced missing. It happened six days after three american women and a child were rescued from captivity in a house owned by their kidnapper, Ariel Castro in Cleveland, Ohio. This story also led me to another, of an eleven year old american girl named Jayce Lee Lugard who was also abducted and held against her wish during 18 years by a pedophile Phillip Craig Garrido visited.

 

Fiona's story touched me so much because i had just finished reading Jayce's memoir "A stolen life". I cried so much during this period and the book i had read afffected my christain life because i just couldn't help but ask why God left an innocent child in the hands of a sex offender during 18 years. Why didn't He rescue her one way or the other during those long years of being a prisonner and a sex slave. She even had 2 children for the monster, one when she was 13 and the other when she was 17. Bref, i regretted reading the book. And i understand why several mothers refused to buy or read the book. If you are interested in this story, you can read it here or watch it here.

Back to Fiona's story, Cecile Bourgeon the mother of Fiona who is 25 years old alerted the police on May 16 after her daughter disappeared in a park called Montjuzet located in Clermont-Ferrand, in central France. Cecile, who was heavily pregnant at the time of the incident claimed she dozed off for a few minutes while lying on the grass, before waking to find that Fiona who was playing with her two year old sister had vanished. The news of her disappearance met the French people with anguish.

Firemen, police and soldiers reinforced to search for the little girl. On the night of Fiona’s disappearance a helicopter, fitted with a special thermal imaging camera, circled above the city looking for any sign of her presence. Because searchers found no sign of her, police two days later opened a formal investigation into “kidnapping and false imprisonment”.

 

After two days of fruitless searching and an appeal for witness, the police decided that the girl was abducted. Fiona's mother made an appeal for information on media, begging people who have information to come forward.

Fiona's mother told reporters she was “shattered,” since her daughter's disappearance.

“I think about everything and nothing in particular. It's been two days. This is very hard, psychologically”

After she launched the emotional appeal, support groups were set up on Facebook and marches organised. The people of Clermont-Ferrand came out to help search for the missing girl.

Three months passed, no trace of petite Fiona, her mother came back on tv. She renewed her desperate appeal for help and even spoke to the media of her disappointment at the lack of solid leads in the search for her daughter.

“Three months have already passed and still no good news.”

“We’re still waiting for a solid lead. It’s very hard, but I have to keep fighting.” 

“Where I’ve been disappointed is that there have been so many testimonies which have led nowhere.”

“But if someone does have information, they must come forward.” 

 

Then details emerged about the troubled family life of the little girl. Forensic police scoured the home of Fiona’s mother, who was questioned as a witness for six hours.

Cecile’s biological father, as well as her mother's boyfriend, both of whom have criminal records, were questioned as witnesses by police investigators. Fiona's father and mother are seperated, they are not on good terms. Cecile got the right to keep their two daughters.Fiona's father claimed he hadn't seen his daughters in over a year.

Nicolas Chafoulais, Fiona's biological father

Fast forward to almost four months later, it was announced on tuesday that Cecile had been arrested along with her boyfriend, Berkane Maklouf, for questioning by police in the southern city of Perpignan. The couple had moved from central France to the south. What kind of mother relocates a few months after the disappearance of her child ? What if the little girl escapes from her abductor and decides to comes home ?

Berkane Maklouf, Cecile's boyfriend

This morning, i was in the bathroom brushing my teeth while my husband was bathing. We listen to the news on the radio using his phone every morning while we prepare to go out. I was shocked when they said Fiona's mother confessed yesterday to the police that her daughter is dead and her body has been buried close to Clermont-Ferrand.

She said Fiona had died accidentally following punches that were delivered by her partner who was drunk after a party they had in their home some days before their stage act. However, her boyfriend told the police that it was a domestic accident. He said the child choked on her vomit and that they found her in the morning and panicked so they decided to invent a story. Two different stories, who do we believe ?

Cecile has taken investigators to Clermont-Ferrand to show them where the body of little Fiona was buried. The Three people close to the couplewho were present at the night of the party have also been held for questioning at Clermont-Ferrand.

To think she made a fool of everyone with the emotional appeal begging her daughter's abductor to return her safetly. To think people came out in the cold rain of spring to search for litlle Fiona who had already been buried. To think of all the prayers my husband and i said on the behalf of Fiona and her family, praying that she doesn't suffer same fate as Jaycee Lee Lugard in the hands of a sexual predator.

To think that she even said that the little girl was wearing a black tracksuit which had the white logo "Hello Kitty" written on it, a black trainers and a gold chain around her neck at the time of her disappearance, whereas she had been buried days before the stage act put up by her mother and boyfriend.

Gosh, the heart of man is desperately evil. A lot of people who joined the search for Fiona are disgusted at the fact that the couple had lied for the last four months.

“What they have done is despicable. It’s horrible, indefinable and inhuman,” Stephane Pozzo told Europe1 radio.

I am so angry right now and i hope that Fiona's mother and boyfriend will be locked up for life.

Investigators had wanted to arrest the mother back in August after they had bugged her telephone lines but at the time she was pregnant and they were forced to wait until she had given birth.

Reports in Le Parisien newspaper also claimed the couple had carried outonline searches on news websites about other stories of missing children, in the days before Fiona's disappearance.

RIP Fiona !

- Ayo DEFORGE