On March 30, 2024, a skull was discovered on a trail in Vernet by a hiker living in this village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. It belonged to Émile, this 2 and a half year old child, who has been missing since July 8, 2023, while he was on vacation in the secondary house of his maternal grandparents, in Haut-Vernet, a hamlet in the commune.
A few days later, investigators from the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN), dispatched to the site, found clothes (a t-shirt, panties, shoes without laces) and other bones. So many determining elements to know the exact causes of death.
The mystery remains over the exact causes of death
Lost from sight, did Émile, exhausted and perhaps injured, succumb naturally, after hours of walking on steep terrain? Was he the victim of involuntary homicide (following a collision with a vehicle?) or intentional? Was his body hidden? Then moved? Was it so inconspicuous that it was not spotted during the intense and massive searches carried out in the very area where Émile's skull and belongings were found, eight months later? Was his remains preyed upon by wild animals?
