Police have found a car belonging to a youth at the centre of a mystery gripping France over his family's disappearance two weeks ago.
The Peugeot 308 belonging to 21-year-old Sebastien Troadec was discovered in the northwestern port of Saint Nazaire, according to Nantes prosecutor Pierre Sennes.
The new breakthrough in the case came the day after a jogger found items belonging to his 18-year-old sister Charlotte Troadec in a forested area three hours by car from where she was last seen.
Police have said that Sebastien Troadec is suspected of planning to kill his family and possibly himself.
A judicial probe into murder, abduction and illegal confinement was opened on Monday.
In searches at the parents' home in a suburb of Nantes after the four family members went missing on 16 February, police discovered Sebastien Troadec's cellphone and his mother Brigitte Troadec's watch covered with blood.
Traces of blood from Sebastien Troadec and the parents, but not Charlotte Troadec, were found throughout the house, as well as signs of efforts to clean them up.
Police said in a bulletin dated 24 February that Sebastien Troadec was suspected of "putting in place a macabre plan aimed at snuffing out the members of his family and maybe himself".
A jogger yesterday found a national health insurance card belonging to Charlotte Troadec in the pocket of a pair of trousers in the Brittany town of Dirinon, near Brest, 280km away from Nantes.
A source close to the probe said Brigitte Troadec and her husband Pascal Troadec, both 49, were originally from the Brest area.
Search teams with sniffer dogs, backed by a helicopter, were deployed to the area around Dirinon.
Divers will also be called up because the zone lies between two estuaries, the investigative source said.
Investigators in white forensic suits returned to the house in search of more clues on Wednesday.
Mr Sennes noted that Sebastien Troadec had been sentenced to carry out community service after being convicted in 2013, when he was a minor, for making death threats on his blog.
But classmates of Sebastien Troadec's interviewed by French media described a quiet, friendly youth, with one saying he was "always ready to help out".
