“Bones” corresponding to the body of little Emile, a two and a half year old child who disappeared in the Alpes de Haute-Provence, in the south-east of France, were found on Saturday. He disappeared 9 months ago. Then begins a long investigation, excavations, searches, reconstructions. The affair caused a stir in France and beyond. His body was eventually found near where he had gone missing. Part of the mystery is resolved, but the circumstances of his death remain unclear. A look back at these long months of research.
Disappearance, first searches
On July 8, 2023, at 5:15 p.m., Emile was seen for the last time by two neighbors in an alley in Haut-Vernet, a hamlet of 25 inhabitants at an altitude of 1,200 meters, on the slopes of the Trois Évêchés massif (Alpes-de-France). Haute-Provence), where he had just arrived for the summer holidays at the second home of his maternal grandparents.
His parents, a very religious Catholic family, live in La Bouilladisse (Bouches-du-Rhône) and were not present that day.
The gendarmerie was alerted around 6 p.m. and an investigation into the causes of the worrying disappearance began on the 9th, accompanied by a call for witnesses. A hunt brought together hundreds of anonymous people who came to lend a hand over the first two days. Investigators and soldiers then continued to carefully inspect 97 hectares of fields, woods and steep terrain, without success.
The thirty houses in the hamlet attached to the commune of Vernet were also searched, the residents questioned and their vehicles inspected.
Opening of a judicial investigation
On July 12, the Digne prosecutor’s office announced that the investigation would switch to the preliminary investigation regime. Then, on the 18th, he opened a judicial investigation justified by “the complexity of the matter” at the Aix-en-Provence investigation center (Bouches-du-Rhône). Two investigating judges are handling the case, still looking for the causes of the worrying disappearance.
A meticulous work of analysis of the data collected begins, i.e. 1,200 calls made to the dedicated telephone line and a considerable amount of information concerning the telephone calls of all the people who have “thick headed” towards Haut-Vernet on the day of Emile’s disappearance.
On the 25th, dog teams specializing in the detection of human remains, supported by drones, were deployed to Vernet.
Investigation extended to criminal motives
The judicial investigation is extended to criminal acts “kidnapping” et “sequestration“, we learned on August 21 from a judicial source.
This decision, “purely technical“, “is not linked to a development in the investigation“on the still unexplained disappearance of the little boy, but”this procedural framework offers more flexibility” to investigators, underlines the deputy prosecutor.
Parents’ call
In their first speech, the child’s parents declared at the end of August in the weekly Famille Chrétienne that they did not “nothing to hide” and deplore “malicious testimonies in the press“. “We inevitably imagine the worst, but we can’t help but hope…“, said the father.
In the same weekly, on the eve of Emile’s third birthday on November 24, his parents broadcast a vibrant appeal: “Understand our distress, tell us where Emile is“, asks the mother.
“Scenario”
On January 8, 2024, the Aix-en-Provence public prosecutor’s office indicated that the investigation “is still very active“and took”another, more technical form“.
Gendarmerie investigators must now “analyze all the elements collected“and in particular a mass of digital and telephone data of people who were on site or in the surrounding area shortly before and shortly after the disappearance, explains the public prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence, Jean-Luc Blachon.
Coincidence? Thursday, March 28, Emile’s family, neighbors and other visual witnesses, i.e. 17 people, were brought together by the courts in Haut-Vernet for a “situation“, aiming to reconstruct the moment when the child was seen for the last time. The mystery remained intact after this act of investigation at the end of which no information had filtered out. And it is too early to know if the discovery of the child’s remains on Saturday may or may not be linked to this event two days earlier.
Discovery of “bones”
Sunday March 31, the Aix-en-Provence public prosecutor’s office announced that “bones” corresponding to the body of the boy were found the day before near Vernet.
“Genetic identification analyzes have made it possible “de conclude this Sunday that these were the bones of the child Emile Soleil“(Editor’s note: his last name), says the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor, without giving any information on the cause of the child’s death.
Until now, much attention had focused on Emile’s maternal grandfather, Philippe V., who had custody of the child that day.
Now in his fifties, he had been placed under the status of assisted witness in an investigation into alleged violence and sexual assault in the early 1990s within a private religious school in Pas-de-Calais. This track had always been studied, “at the same level” than the others, assured a source close to the matter.
The grandfather’s lawyer, Isabelle Colombani, contacted by AFP, did not want to comment on Sunday, “out of respect for the family’s pain“.