A French woman embarked on a day trip to northern Italy for what appears to be a ghost hunt. She never came home.
The body of the unnamed woman, aged 22, was found this weekend in an abandoned church where she had been stabbed to death and drained of blood, according to a CNN report.
Investigators are now trying to determine whether she was a TikToker who was part of a ghost hunt or if her death was something more sinister, like a willing sacrificial death.
The woman had traveled from her hometown near Lyon, France, to La Salle, in the Aosta Valley, Italy, and informed her family of her intention to find a “haunted house believed to contain ghosts” , police told the media.
The journey to the Italian city should take just over an hour from Lyon by car, according to an estimate from Google Maps.
City witnesses interviewed by police said they noticed the woman was accompanied by a man hours before her death. Both were dressed as vampires, CNN reported.
A witness described the woman as “emaciated” and looked like a “walking corpse”, while the man was described as having dark hair and olive skin, the outlet added.
A camping knife was used to stab the woman, causing her to bleed to death, according to the report. She also had two gunshot wounds to her neck and one to her abdomen, which police said may have been inflicted on CNN after her death.
There were no signs of a struggle, CNN reported, although police noted that some of the blood on the floor had been removed when they arrived to inspect the scene. Police are still looking for the man who accompanied him, the media added.
One theory considered by investigators is that the woman’s death was the result of “consensual murder” or sacrifice, according to the publication.
The woman also allegedly took part in a ghost hunting challenge that was popular among TikTok users in France, police told CNN.
Although the details of this particular challenge were not shared in the CNN article, it is worth noting that “ghost hunting” is a popular search term on TikTok.
The United States in particular has seen a rise in “haunted tourism” in recent years, as historic buildings capitalize on the ghost hunting phenomenon, according to a 2021 Bloomberg article.
Although the role of a TikTok stunt in this death has not yet been established, the platform has long been criticized for putting people in real danger.
For example, TikTok faced massive criticism in 2020 for promoting the “randonauting” challenge that encouraged users to download a separate app that would use their location to take them on adventures.
A group who participated discovered a suitcase containing human remains, Good To Know reported at the time. Then, in 2022, the “blackout challenge” led to the deaths of several users who tried to choke themselves unconscious.
At the time, a TikTok spokesperson said The Washington Post that the disturbing “challenge”, which people seem to know about from sources other than TikTok, long predates our platform and was never a TikTok trend.
Representatives for TikTok, the city of La Salle and local police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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