Two bodies found in Drôme, probably a mother and her son missing

It appears to be “the child and his mother wanted, subject to future findings,” the public prosecutor said in a press release on Friday.

Two bodies, probably those of a mother and her son missing since New Year's Eve, were discovered on Friday January 3 in Drôme, the Valence prosecutor's office announced. Gendarmes found the two bodies at the end of the morning in the town of Chabeuil, and they appear to be “the child and his mother wanted, subject to future findings”specified the public prosecutor, Laurent de Caigny, in a press release.

The exact circumstances of their death remain unknown at this time. Romans-sur-Isère police officers opened an investigation on Thursday following the worrying disappearance of a 45-year-old woman and her 8-year-old son. She had left her home, a few kilometers from Chabeuil, in an unexplained manner with her son in her car, according to the account of relatives cited by the prosecutor.

The first telephone, bank and video surveillance searches having yielded nothing, a search notice was published on Thursday. Photos of the child, a young boy 1.25 m tall and his blonde-haired mother, had been broadcast in the local media, as well as the description of the mother's car, a yellow Peugeot. The two bodies were discovered near the vehicle sought, said Laurent de Caigny. The investigation was reclassified as deprivation of care for a minor by ascendant leading to death, a charge likely to evolve after the autopsies, underlines the prosecutor.