Precise cause of death unknown; Dozens erect memorials to the girl on the banks of the Yarkon.
By JPOST.COM STAFFlittle rose 248.88(photo credit: Israel Police)
An autopsy on the remains found in the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv confirmed on Friday they were four-year-old Rose Pizem's, but the cause of death is still unclear.
The corpse, found by divers on Thursday, was identified by a DNA comparison with samples taken from the girl's mother, 23-year-old Marie-Charlotte Renault, and father, Benjamin Pizem, who lives in France.
"Final confirmation of the DNA tests show that the body is of Rose," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. "Samples were taken from both the mother and the father."
Police sources said the body was not completely intact and that it would take a few days to determine how the little girl from Netanya died.
Investigators suspect Renault's lover, 45-year-old Ronnie Ron (who is also Rose's biological grandfather), murdered the child and that the mother may also have been involved. Both are in custody.
Renault wrote an emotional message to her daughter in French, asking her attorney to place it on the girl's grave.
"I am so sorry I failed to understand your distress, your suffering, that I could not tell you much I loved you," she wrote.
As the autopsy was being conducted on Friday, dozens of people set up memorials on the banks of the Yarkon, with flowers, candles and letters to Rose.
She disappeared in May and Ron has admitted killing her, although he later retracted his confession.
Ron initially told police he had struck and killed the little girl in a fit of rage and thrown a suitcase containing her body into the Yarkon River. He changed his story several times, saying he had trafficked her to Palestinians, sent her to a haredi boarding school and arranged for her to go abroad.
Just last week, he told a Ramle court that he had confessed under duress.
The girl's father, Benjamin Pizem, told Associated Press Television News from his home in suburban Paris that Israeli police informed him about the discovery of the body.
"I was shocked when I saw the images on television of the suitcase," he said.
Rose's French family members are pressing for a funeral in France, while those here want her laid to rest in Israel. No decision has yet been made, police sources said.
Police investigators said Rose had suffered a range of emotional and developmental problems. They said she had difficulty speaking, wasn't toilet trained and often banged her head against the wall.
For two months, her disappearance went unnoticed by authorities, until Ron's mother notified social workers that the child had vanished in May and she feared for her well-being. Ron was arrested three weeks later.
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