• Woman suspected of killing man and cutting his body in half in France
• Body believed to be her missing landlord

Swiss authorities have detained a woman in the village of Sainte-Croix after a body was found cut in half in the nearby French village of Fedry, believed to belong to her 75-year-old landlord

Police said the woman was placed in pre-trial detention following her arrest by a border guard patrol, noting that she is suspected of setting fire to her home and of involvement in her landlord’s disappearance

Multiple sources told AFP that the woman was identified as a tenant in an apartment owned by a Swiss man who had been reported missing on Friday, following the discovery on Saturday of a body cut in half in the nearby French village of Fedry

The mayor of the village where the body was found, Jean Roblet, said: You don’t see this every day… I’ve never witnessed anything like this before

Swiss police added that formal identification procedures are still underway, but initial findings suggest the body could belong to the missing man from Sainte-Croix, about 100 kilometers from Fedry

Arnaud Grecourt, prosecutor for the Vesoul district in France, said the body found on the banks of the Saône River was wearing only underwear, cut at the waist, and covered with a white substance, with burns on the back and multiple wounds on the skull, neck, hands, and torso

He added: "The wounds on the hands suggest defensive injuries, and many of the injuries indicate the use of a sharp instrument," noting that preliminary autopsy results suggest death resulted from bleeding due to a stab wound to the chest. The body was apparently dismembered after death

Swiss police are working in cooperation with their French counterparts, and no further details have been released at this stage