Alice Gross: Suspect Arnis Zalkalns 'would have been charged', police say
14-year-old Alice Gross went missing on 28 August
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The CPS has revealed that suspect Arnis Zalkalns would have been charged with the murder of Alice Gross if he was alive.
The police have now formally announced that they are satisfied that all evidence points to 41-year-old Latvian builder Arnis Zalkalns. They believe that Alice Gross was murdered before she was reported missing, and that the suspect's motive was "most likely sexual".
Police revealed that a cigarette butt with Zalkalns' DNA was discovered close to her body, which was found wrapped in a bin bag and "weighed down with bricks, logs and a bicycle wheel".
An iPhone cover thought to have belonged to Alice was found hidden in his garden.
Her cause of death was given as "compressive asphyxia" - compression of the chest "probably caused" by a heavier body lying on and crushing her own. No other obvious marks or injuries were found on her body.
DCI Carl Metha spoke at a press conference and said that he believed Alice was "already dead" by the time she was reported missing. He described the search for the missing girl as "one of the largest" ever conducted by the Met.
14-year-old Alice Gross went missing on 28 August. She had left her home in Hanwell, Ealing, last Thursday at 1pm, telling her mother that she’d be back that evening.
She was last seen on CCTV walking alone on the Grand Union Canal towpath at Brentford Lock in Middlesex, wearing dark blue jeans and a dark grey T-shirt at about 3.45pm on 28 August. It is believed that she was on her way home.
Her body was found in the River Brent after a mass search that took place over five weeks. Arnis Zalkalns was named as a suspect on 18 September and found dead four days after Alice's body was recovered.
Zalkalns served seven years in prison in his native country for the murder of his wife Rudite. The labourer, who works at a building site in Isleworth, west London, is thought to have come to the UK in 2007 after serving his sentence.
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs committee, previously said: "It is very concerning that people convicted of serious crimes are able to cross borders without the country they are entering being alerted."
Zalkalns’ remains were located in Boston Manor Park in west London on 4 October at 2pm – just over a month after he was last seen and in an area not previously searched by police.