French boy found dead with bite marks on neck

29 July 2008

LYON – An 11-year-old boy has been found dead in the street in the east-central French town of Lagnieu with bite marks on his neck, police said Tuesday.

"The child fell from his bike and… appears to have been bitten by a stray dog, but we don’t know if the death is due to a dog or an accident," said a police official.

A post-mortem was due to be carried out to determine the cause of death, which occurred Monday around midnight, police said.

There was no evidence that the bike had been hit by a car, the official said, which would appear to rule out that it was a hit-and-run accident.

Police have searched for stray dogs likely to have bitten the boy but have found none.

Neighbours said they had heard no barking at the time of the death.

The boy was from the region but was staying with friends of the family in Lagnieu, a town of about 6,000 people.

The people he was staying with went looking for him when he failed to return to their house. They quickly found his body in a nearby street, police said.

[AFP / Expatica]