Chilling picture shows girl, 12, found dead in suitcase with female suspect who bought croissant ‘after killing her’

"She was struggling to carry the suitcase, we thought it was because it was heavy items and she was quite slim - we never thought it was a body.

"It was 5pm and she was walking around with that suitcase, she even left it outside a café and went to the bakery opposite to buy a croissant as it nothing had happened."

Lola had been reported missing by her parents on Friday afternoon after she failed to return from her school, College George-Brassens, in Paris.

The schoolgirl was found hog tied with a slit throat and squeezed into the plastic suitcase at the bottom of a building at 11pm on Friday, police said.

On Saturday, it was revealed mysterious numbers - "1" and "0" - were discovered on her body.

According to , the numbers were "placed" on her body - meaning they were not drawn or scraped on her skin.

A post-mortem carried out on Saturday afternoon to accurately determine the cases of death revealed that Lola had died from asphyxia, according to the AFP.

The young girl was found with a important wound to the throat and sellotape across her face, police said.

Lola's father, who is a caretaker for the building where the 12-year-old disappeared from, had started to worry when the little girl failed to return home after leaving school at 3pm on Friday.

By 5pm, her worried mother Delphine went to the police station to report her missing.

The caretaker was able to review CCTV footage of the building and told police he had seen his daughter walking in around 3:20, in the company of a woman in her twenties he did not recognise.

The footage revealed the young girl entered her building but never made it home.

The family then posted a public appeal on mum Delphine's Facebook page, asking for help to find their missing daughter, who the parents described as a smiley blonde girl with shoulder length hair.

Lola was wearing white jeans, a hooded white jumper and a grey bag, they wrote.

According to a witness the female suspect, who has only been identified as a 24-year-old, had later asked them for help carrying a suitcase, which she struggled with, to a nearby car.

Around 11.30pm, a homeless man contacted the police after he allegedly discovered a body under fabrics in a suitcase on rue d'Hautpoul, behind the building from which the young girl had disappeared.

The public prosecutor's office confirmed traces of struggle had been discovered in the third basement of the girl's building on rue Manin, where cellar sellotape and a box cutter were found.

The 12-year-old's parents were informed of her death on Saturday at 2am.

Six people have now been arrested in relation to the case, including the woman struggling to carry a suitcase and the homeless man who alerted police, the public prosecutor's office said.

BFMTV has reported the man is not a suspect in the case.

Following the news, mourners left flowers and messages outside her building.

A letter, written by another young girl and adorned with pink hearts, read: "You Lola, my friend since nursery school, all these memories that come back to my mind, when we loved dressing up with princess dresses and when we loved to annoy your brother. Despite the time that will pass, I won't ever forget you. RIP".

An emergency psychological support unit has been set up at Lola's school, where parents told BFTMV they were not going to let their kids go back to, unless accompanied.

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation for "murder of a minor under the age of 15".