Police say a 22-year-old French woman whose blood-drained body was found in an abandoned church in northern Italy over the weekend told her family that she was going to look for ghosts, perhaps as part of a popular ghost-hunting TikTok challenge in France.
The woman, Auriane Nathalie Laisne, and her boyfriend, Teima Sohaib, were seen in the town of La Salle, dressed as vampires, police told CNN.
They had been asking residents about any abandoned villages nearby where they could camp.
Laisne’s body was found in the church by a hiker, according to police. She was in the fetal position and had been stabbed. She also had gunshot wounds to her neck which a medical examiner said came after she was dead, according to news site Il Gazzettino.
CNN reported that police are also working to determine if Laisne’s death was a “consented murder” — or a sacrifice — as she was found bloodless.
Authorities arrested Sohaib on Thursday and charged him with killing Laisne.
“It is a classic femicide (the killing of a female because of her gender) motivated by motives of possessiveness and control over the victim’s will,” Aosta prosecutor Luca Ceccanti said, according to Il Giornale.
“The person arrested in Lyon is seriously suspected of the crime of premeditated murder and other aggravating circumstances,” Ceccanti added.
Police said Laisne had a domestic violence case open against Sohaib.
Investigators believe she may have been stabbed with a camping knife and bled to death, and was then shot twice in the neck and once in the abdomen after she died, medical examiner Roberto Testi and police said, according to CNN.
Laisne’s body was found in the church near a bag of pink marshmallows.
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