paris terror
People were pictured holding signs and flags while attending a vigil held for the victims of the Paris terror attacks in Washington Square Park, Nov. 14, 2015, in New York City. Getty Images

A couple once suspected of serving as a fourth terror cell in the November 2015 attacks on Paris has been released from suspicion and revealed as a Belgian prostitute and her French lover, French newspaper Le Parisien reported Tuesday. Police investigated the pair for several months before discovering they were unrelated to the attacks that left 130 people dead throughout the city and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to the same report.

Chaos ensued in Paris the night of Nov. 13, 2015, when Islamic extremists who had pledged allegiance to the terror organization known as the Islamic State group descended on city, slaughtering dozens of people in cafes, restaurants, a concert hall and outside a stadium. There are at least nine known terrorists who worked in three teams during the attacks.

The Belgian prostitute and her lover, whose names have not been revealed by authorities, happened to trace the path of the terrorists almost to a tee, according to cellular data collected by the police. The woman passed near the Stade de France stadium around ten minutes before two kamikazes detonated their suicide vests outside of the arena. The pair later met up near the site of a series of attacks on cafes and bars in the 11th arrondissement, and they finished their soiree in the 18th, not far from where one of the terrorists had fled, ditching his car.

The coincidences can be explained by the fact that the train from Belgium to Paris passes near the stadium and that the pair had long spent much of their time in neighborhoods near both the 11th and 18th arrondissements, according to Le Parisien. The police investigated the couple for months, however, before coming to the conclusion that their locations had been an improbable coincidence and not a sinister clue.

Police have continued their investigation of the Paris attacks more than three months later, as at least one attacker, Salah Abdesalam, is still at large.

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