A MAN SUSPECTED of beheading a 13-year-old boy in a cannibalism attack in southern France has been shot dead by police, a prosecutor said on Monday.

Police made the grisly discovery of a body and severed head on Sunday evening in an apartment in the town of Tarascon rented by a 32-year-old man with a psychiatric disorder, local public prosecutor Laurent Gumbau told AFP.

Gumbau said that an investigation into the disappearance of a boy from a care home in the city of Marseille, 100 kilometres to the east, had led police to the address in Tarascon.

“The body found may be that of the minor,” he said, adding that strips of flesh had been ripped from a shoulder, fuelling suspicion of cannibalism.

The man, who had previous convictions for acts of violence, fled the apartment over rooftops, according to neighbours.

The police eventually located him at another location in Tarascon three hours later and shot him dead, the prosecutor said.

He added that the suspect did not appear to have been armed at the time of his death and that he had not been formally identified as the killer of the person whose body was found in the apartment.

A police oversight body is investigating the circumstances of his killing and an autopsy has been ordered on both bodies.

© AFP 2021