A HOMELESS man with a record of sexual assaults has confessed to the murder and rape of a 13 year old British girl, Caroline Dickinson, on a school trip to France, Justice and police sources said yesterday.
The man, aged in his 40s, was arrested on Saturday and is being held in St Malo prison in Brittany pending formal charges, an investigating magistrate said. The man was formally placed under investigation on suspicion of rape and murder following questioning by the judge on Monday evening.
He was traced using a portrait drawn from information given to police by people in the village of Pleine Fougeres where the murder took place, police sources said.
Caroline Dickinson was found raped and smothered in her bed last Thursday in a room she was sharing with four other girls in a youth hostel in the village. She was among 40 British children from Launceston Community College in Cornwall.
A secretary at the town hall said she had met the suspect when he called a week before the murder to ask for help. She described him as blond with a moustache and wearing an earring.
"He was courteous, very nice. He came to ask for help and I sent him to the homeless centre where he was given lunch," she said. "On Monday police came to show me his picture.
After news of the arrest was released, the mayor of Pleine Fougeres, Mr Christian Couet, told France 2 television. "People feel anger when they learn that the killer had already committed several rapes.'
The suspect, who occasionally stayed in the north western town of Domfront but moved from one place to another in the Manche department in Brittany, has already been charged for minor sexual offences, officials said.
A source close to the youth hostel said a reconstruction of the crime had been carried out in the building on Monday in the suspect's presence.