A macabre discovery and many questions still unanswered. On August 12, the “partially charred” body of a woman was found in Saint-Gilles, a village in Gard located about twenty kilometers from Nîmes. A week later, Wednesday August 19, the Nîmes prosecutor, Cécile Gensac, confirmed that the victim was indeed a “29-year-old social media influencer”, identified as Sonia Bellina, followed by more than 250,000 people on TikTok. The same day, two men were arrested and taken into police custody. Here's what we know about this case.
A macabre discovery in the middle of the vineyards
It all started on Wednesday August 12, when a farm worker discovered the “partially charred” body of a woman in the vineyards in Saint-Gilles. The man immediately notified the gendarmes, who went to the scene with a magistrate, reported France 3 Occitanie. On site, burned vine leaves and ashes were still visible on the ground a few days after the discovery of the body.
“It was a colleague who discovered the body while going to work in the vineyards,” a witness told Midi Libre. “When he arrived on the plot, he saw the body, there were still fumaroles above the body, it must not have been long since the fire had been set.” During the first findings, the Nîmes prosecutor explained that it was a "partially calcined" woman's body, but that it had not, for the moment, been identified. The prosecution opens an investigation for assassination.
The victim identified a week later
The first rumors about the identity of the victim quickly circulated on social networks. And this in particular following “statements from his family worried about [his] disappearance”, specified the Nîmes public prosecutor’s office. In the video published by Midi Libre on Monday, the one who presents herself as Sonia Bellina's big sister affirms that the body found in the vines was indeed that of the influencer, from whom she had not heard from "since August 10". He was finally officially identified on Wednesday, via DNA expertise, which made it possible “to confirm that the identity of the person discovered dead and partially burned (...) is indeed that of the 29-year-old social media influencer,” explained the prosecution.
According to the woman presenting herself as the big sister, who also testified on TikTok, Sonia Bellina lived in Paris, where she launched herself on social networks, alternating humorous videos and fashion and beauty advice. She “regularly” visited her mother in Nîmes. On the day of her disappearance, “she had been there for a month,” explains the young woman.
Two men arrested and taken into police custody
On Wednesday, two men were arrested and placed in police custody by investigators from the research section of the Nîmes gendarmerie, "due to elements suggesting their participation in the facts, direct or indirect", specified the prosecution. A source close to the investigation tells franceinfo that they are around thirty years old. One of them, already known for violence and carrying a weapon, is suspected of having been the last contact with the influencer on the night of the events. The same source also explains that investigators had been interested for several days in a suspicious vehicle reported in the area that evening.
Wednesday evening, a sawed-off shotgun was found during a search of the home of one of the two suspects, aged 26, Franceinfo and France Télévisions learned from a source close to the case. The gendarmes also found around thirty 12 caliber cartridges, according to the same source.
Circumstances to be clarified
Since the disappearance of Sonia Bellina, her family has spoken out in the media and on social networks. According to the young woman who presents herself as the victim's big sister to Midi Libre, Sonia Bellina "came across a bad guy at the wrong time". In the other video circulating on TikTok, she says she fears that Sonia Bellina was the victim of a man she was seeing, claiming not to know his identity. "She went out one evening, she told us: 'I'm going to see someone. I'll come back'. Her phone went off around 2 o'clock. We tried to call her. Nothing," she says. The lawyer for Sonia Bellina's relatives, Mourad Battikh, denounced on RTL "an assassination of rare savagery", assuring that the body of the influencer "was abandoned in the vineyards, almost thrown away like waste."
