Nearly a week of searching, with no news. Since Monday, Morgane Rivoal, a 13-year-old teenager, has been wanted in Côtes-d'Armor, in Brittany, indicates the local prosecutor's office which has opened an investigation for “disturbing disappearance”. A disappearance which upset hundreds of inhabitants of his commune and his department, who mobilized this Friday for a hunt, for the moment without results.
Disappeared after an argument
Morgane Rivoal has been wanted since Monday around the town of Pabu, in Côtes-d'Armor. During the weekend, the teenager had a dispute with her parents, “relating in particular to Morgane's use of social networks”, explains the public prosecutor of Saint-Brieuc, Nicolas Heitz.
Speaking to France 3 Bretagne, her parents, Yoann and Aurore Rivoal, explained that Morgane was on Snapchat and WhatsApp, but also had a TikTok account which they did not know existed. After “a heated discussion”, “her father broke his daughter’s mobile phone and took her SIM card”, explained the prosecutor.
On Monday, Morgane left her home around 7:15 a.m. Her parents did not see her leave, “busy getting ready”, “but she said goodbye to them as usual”. However, she did not go to the Albert Camus college in Graces, where she was expected. According to the testimony of a friend of the teenager, the latter was “able to indicate on social networks that she would not come to class on Monday”. According to her parents, the schoolgirl “left without money or bank card and will not have a business bag”.
After reporting her absence from school at 9:30 a.m., Morgane's disappearance was reported “Monday at 11:40 a.m. by her mother to the Guingamp gendarmerie”, explains the prosecutor. An investigation was then opened for “disturbing disappearance”.
A fight carried out this Friday
This Friday, a hunt was held around Pabu, a town of 2,800 inhabitants near Guingamp. Nearly 800 volunteers, supervised by the gendarmerie and civil protection, took part. Among the volunteers were members of the neighboring En Avant Guingamp (L2) football club. “Our players are joining in the search to find Morgane, who has been missing for several days. The training scheduled for today has been postponed,” the club said on social media.
“I am very satisfied and very pleasantly surprised to see that people are mobilizing and feeling concerned by this disappearance. I know that the family is very touched too,” Jean-Baptiste Gautier, commander of the Guingamp gendarmerie company which is leading the search operation, told journalists.
Numerous means of investigation
In addition to this highly publicized search, “there is also a whole research phase which is not visible, with investigators who have been working” on this disappearance “since Monday already”, underlined Commander Gautier.
“A large number of human and technical resources” are being used by the gendarmerie, said Saint-Brieuc public prosecutor Nicolas Heitz this Saturday. The investigation was entrusted “to the research brigade of the Guingamp gendarmerie company, reinforced by all the company's gendarmes but also by soldiers from the Rennes research section”. Nearly fifty soldiers are engaged full time, he assures.
“Two dogs from the gendarmerie were also used,” he adds, specifying that these two dogs “took the trail from the home to the Castel Pic district in Guingamp, where they lost the trail.” In addition to searches on foot, by bicycle and by vehicle, a helicopter was mobilized “on several occasions”. Nautical resources and divers were also engaged in the Pabu area.
The teenager's family and friends have already been interviewed, and “the hearings will continue today, in order to leave nothing to chance”, indicated the prosecutor this Saturday. Searches already carried out “at the family home and in other homes of his relations have proven unsuccessful”.
This Saturday, ten gendarmes are also mobilized to carry out road checks in the Guingamp sector, indicates France Info. At the same time, other gendarmes are carrying out door-to-door operations among the residents of Pabu.
The family wants to silence “the rumors”
To France 3, the teenager's mother denounced “rumors” about the disappearance of her daughter. “Social media was the subject of our argument. Today, on these networks, some are telling us that we have found our daughter, this is false. On these same networks, we also say that we were violent with our daughter, this is false. Her phone was taken away, it was broken, but we never used violence against our daughter. Let things be clear. It was an argument, like we've had before. All these rumors hurt us,” denounced Aurore Rivoal, moved.
“Morgane had never run away in the past, according to her parents who describe good relations in the family, which is confirmed by Morgane's paternal grandparents,” assures the public prosecutor of Saint-Brieuc.
According to Aurore Rivoal, Morgane, a tennis enthusiast, was to go to Saint-Malo with her family this weekend to participate in the selections of the “ballos”, the ball collectors at Roland Garros. “She wanted to sleep in Saint-Malo (Saturday, Editor’s note) to be in shape for the next day, to have every chance,” she remembers. “We would really like her to come back, because we miss her…” added the mother this Friday evening. “The whole family is there, all her friends are there to welcome her, we’re just waiting for her. »
