MARSEILLE – French investigators have found and identified the “bones” of a toddler whose disappearance last summer in a tiny village in the French Alps shocked the nation, a prosecutor said on March 31.
Emile Soleil – then two years old – was staying with his grandparents for the first day of the summer holidays when he vanished on July 8, 2023.
Two neighbours last saw him in the late afternoon walking alone on a street in Le Vernet, a tiny village at an altitude of 1,200m.
“On (March 30), the police were informed of the discovery of bones near the hamlet of Le Vernet,” prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon said.
Genetic testing allowed them “to conclude on (March 31) that they were the bones of the child Emile”.
The prosecutor did not give a cause of death, but said forensic investigators were continuing to analyse the bones.
“The police are deploying means to carry out additional searches in the area where they were found,” he added.
A massive on-the-ground search involving dozens of police officers and soldiers, sniffer dogs, a helicopter and drones failed to find the little boy in July.
An initial probe into a missing person soon became a criminal investigation into a possible abduction. The possibilities of an accident or a fall have also remained open.
Police on March 28 returned to the village, cordoning off the area and summoning 17 people including family members, neighbours and witnesses to re-enact the last moments before the child went missing to try to solve the mystery.
Drones flew overhead in the drizzle to capture footage of the re-enactment.
Emile’s mother and father, devout Catholics, were absent on the day of his disappearance.
Until now, some media outlets had focused on the boy’s grandfather.
Emile’s grandfather was questioned in a 1990s case on alleged violence and sexual aggression at a private Catholic school.
But a source close to the current case said his possible involvement in the disappearance had always been examined to “the same degree” as other hypotheses.
In late November, a day before Emile would have turned three, his parents published a call for answers in a Christian weekly.
“Tell us where he is,” they wrote. AFP
