To try to understand how little Émile disappeared, the investigating judges organized a “scenario” all day this Thursday, a sort of reconstruction. Émile, two and a half years old, disappeared on July 8 in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) while he was on vacation with his maternal grandparents. He had escaped their surveillance.
All day this Thursday, for ten hours and in difficult weather conditions, in the hamlet closed to the public for the occasion, the investigating judges, investigators, lawyers and 17 people summonedthe family and residents, relived the disappearance of the boy.
“The objective is to retrace the evening chronologically of last July 8″ explained to franceinfo Pierre Coursières, second in command of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence gendarmerie group, “to have the people involved replay the scene, move around, almost minute by minute”. Minute by minute, until the moment, at 5:15 p.m., following his nap, Émile disappeared.
Testimonies that contradict each other
According to the franceinfo reporter on site, investigators are interested in the child’s family, his grandfather, but also in two neighbors whose testimonies contradict each other. They are the last to see Émile alive in the street that goes down from the hamlet. The investigators had, thanks to this “scenario”, to materialize their statements, to see if there are any inconsistencies, particularly with telephony.
Unusually, this scenario did not take place at the same time as the day of the disappearance, which occurred at the beginning of summer. The mountains are powdered with snow, it was pouring rain this Thursday morning and it snowed in the followingnoon, the vegetation and the light are very different from those of July 2023. For Pierre Coursières, “the weather is not a determining factor. The area used for the reconstruction is the center of the hamlet, so vegetation does not come into play.”
A reconstruction behind closed doors
Did the investigators have a specific element to verify or information that led them to speed up the procedure? Everything happened in the greatest secrecy this Thursday. The gendarmes had put in place a major system to make this reconstruction a real closed session. A squadron of mobile gendarmes was mobilized, roads were blocked, drones flew over journalists. Flying over the area was also prohibited by prefectural decree. Access to the hamlet of Haut-Vernet was prohibited until Friday morning.
Since Émile’s disappearance, a blatant investigation was first opened to “search for the causes of the worrying disappearance”. At the end of August, it was then transferred to a preliminary investigation for “abduction, arrest, arbitrary detention and sequestration”. Numerous searches and searches have been carried out, but have so far been unsuccessful.
Access to the hamlet of Haut-Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) was prohibited by municipal decree until Friday morning. © Radio France – Aurélien Thirard Émile disappeared on July 8, 2023 in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. © Visactu
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Disappearance of Émile au Vernet: following more than eight and a half months of investigation, the search is still unsuccessful
