Raquel Villaécija Paris
Paris
Updated Sunday, March 31, 2024-13:09
France The disappearance of little Émile in France is now being treated as a criminal case
Disappearance Émile was not alone with his grandparents
Émile
was two years old when he vanished in July, while playing at his grandparents' house in
Le Vernet,
a district of just over a hundred inhabitants in
Haute Provence
. There were raids, he questioned the entire neighborhood. It was not possible to find his whereabouts. Eight months later, skeletal remains belonging to the minor have been found near the area.
The prosecutor of Aix en Provence confirmed in a statement this Sunday that "the genetic identification analysis" of these remains "has allowed us to conclude that it is a child of two and a half years", the age of the child. The area had been combed when Émile disappeared.
On March 30, 2024, the national gendarmerie was informed of the discovery of bones near the village of Vernet, the prosecutor's statement explains. The criminal investigation institute of the gendarmerie is now in charge of carrying out the analyzes to confirm that the remains correspond to Émile.
The boy lost track of him on July 8 while playing at his maternal grandparents' house
, where he was spending the holidays. Two witnesses saw him going down the street, but they did not consider it strange nor were there any details that alerted them.
A disturbing disappearance investigation was opened. There were raids. The interrogations yielded no clues; the telephone lines were analyzed, also without results. From the beginning, investigators
did not rule out any avenue of investigation: neither the accident nor the criminal trail
.
The analysis of the remains found will provide clues about this. On Thursday, investigators summoned more than a dozen people in the district to try to reconstruct the events: the moment in which the child disappeared.