16-year-old arrested in France after finding deceased child with bath towel around neck in France

©Thanh Ly via Unsplash

The public prosecutor's office in Rennes, Brittany, France, has opened a murder investigation after the lifeless body of a boy of 12 was found on Sunday.

The victim was found on the banks of the Vilaine River, which runs through the city's historic center, not far from the city center. A wet bath towel appeared to be tied tightly around the child's neck. The lifeless body lay in a bush near some apartment buildings. French news agency AFP reported.

"The circumstances that led to the death have yet to be determined," the prosecutor's office said on Sunday in a press release. "The intervention of a third person is among the hypotheses. A wet bath towel was tied very tightly around his neck." At a press conference on Monday, the prosecutor's office reported that a 16-year-old boy was arrested in the case. The young victim had a towel wrapped around his neck, and it appears that police estimate the 16-year-old as the prime suspect in the heinous acts.

The alarm was raised on Sunday when a fisherman heard a child screaming around 4:40 p.m. He had difficulty locating exactly where the screaming was coming from and notified the police. After all, according to the fisherman, it was not a normal voice of a child screaming that sometimes occur when children are at play. "Despite the call of the witnesses who discovered the body, the emergency services were unable to resuscitate the child," the prosecutor's office said on Monday at a press briefing.

The child was pronounced dead at the scene. According to Ouest-France, the child is believed to have died of a cardiac arrest due to strangulation.

The Rennes Department of Organized and Specialized Crime (DCOS) is in charge of the murder investigation.

©Thanh Ly via Unsplash - illustration image of the Vilaine River in Rennes, France.