Why did Gérard Bonnet venture onto this dirt road in the middle of the night? Why did he take care to lock his vehicle before leaving on foot? So many questions that remain unanswered. On Monday, the man disappeared while making his daily rounds. After intense searches, his lifeless body was located in a watercourse.
The Kangoo located in the forest
“He left the house around 4 a.m. to deliver newspapers. He has been following the same journey for 20 years. He passed through the communes of Champlive, Osse and Bouclans, confided his grandson, William Bonnet. In the hamlet of Ambre, he distributed The Republican East in a few mailboxes before disappearing. We tried to contact him several times, but his cell phone remained disconnected. »
On the day of his disappearance, a gendarmerie helicopter swept the area looking for the septuagenarian. Operators used a powerful thermal camera to locate it. This painstaking work yielded nothing. In the evening, a new element was brought to the attention of investigators. It was an ONF agent who found his vehicle stuck in a dirt road, three kilometers east of Glamondans. A police dog handler went to the scene, looking for a trail. The Saint-Hubert rushed into the forest without managing to locate Gérard Bonnet.
Divers found him in the water
Faced with the urgency of the situation, his loved ones asked for help from friends, area residents and hunters to lead a hunt. In a few hours, this outpouring of solidarity brought together around a hundred people. Under the orders of the gendarmes, groups crisscrossed the woods, calling for the unfortunate man. “It’s been raining a lot the last few days. The ground is soggy, pointed out a participant. It is also an area where the vegetation is dense, research is complicated. »
At the end of the afternoon, divers from Saint-Jean-de-Losne (Côte-d'Or) continued this work by probing the Audeux. A river swollen by heavy rainfall in recent days, which is located in the middle of the search area. At nightfall, the victim's body was discovered submerged in water by the police. In order to evacuate all hypotheses, an autopsy will be carried out in the coming days, the Besançon public prosecutor's office confirmed this Tuesday evening.
