This is the end of a mystery that has lasted since July 2023. In a press release released on Sunday March 31, the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor announced that the bones of little Emile Soleil, aged 2 and a half at the time of his disappearance, were discovered on Saturday “near the hamlet Vernet” (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), where the young child was last seen.
“On March 30, 2024, the national gendarmerie was informed of the discovery of bones near the hamlet Vernet, he explains. The investigators took possession of the bones, immediately transported to the IRCGN [Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale] in order to carry out genetic identification analyses, which made it possible to conclude on March 31 that these were the bones of the child Emile Soleil. » In his press release, the prosecutor announces that “the IRCGN continues forensic analyzes of the bones”while the national gendarmerie goes “deploy means to undertake additional research in the geographical area where they were found”.
The lawyer for Emile Soleil’s parents, Jérôme Triomphe, published a press release at the end of the day relaying the words of Marie and Colomban Soleil. “If this heartbreaking news was feared, now is the time for mourning, contemplation and prayer”he wrote. “The investigators continue their work in the necessary secrecy of the investigation so that the causes of Emile’s disappearance and death can be discovered”added Mr. Triumph.
An area “already inspected”
It was a hiker who discovered the bones, including the child’s skull, as confirmed by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on LCI. This discovery took place “in an area surrounded by nature, steep and not always easy to access”, said gendarmerie spokesperson Marie-Laure Pezant on BFM-TV. However, this area had “already been inspected several times by a citizen raid and gendarmerie investigators”helped in particular by a helicopter equipped with thermal cameras, she said.
The circumstances of the death remain to be clarified and all avenues are still open, insisted M.me Pezant, according to whom “there is the possibility that these bones were brought by a person, by an animal or by weather conditions which could have modified the area”.
Conflicting accounts
Little Emile was seen for the last time on July 8 at 5:15 p.m., alone, in an alley in the tiny hamlet of 25 inhabitants located about 2 kilometers from the village of Vernet (125 inhabitants). The young boy had just arrived for the summer vacation at his maternal grandparents’ second home. Two neighbors claim to have seen him on this street, but they offer conflicting accounts.
Read our survey (2023): Article reserved for our subscribers The disappearance of little Emile puts the village of Vernet under pressure
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First opened, for a worrying disappearance, in Digne-les-Bains, the investigation was quickly entrusted to two investigating judges from Aix-en-Provence, then reclassified as criminal grounds for ” kidnapping “ And “sequestration”. This discovery of bones is therefore an important step in the investigation into his disappearance. No leads had been put aside, even if the theory of a fatal fall had faded following the multiple searches organized in the surroundings of the hamlet, after which no body had been found.
Investigators organized a Thursday “situation” having brought together Emile’s family, neighbors and witnesses in the hamlet, almost nine months after the start of the investigation. In total, seventeen people were summoned by the courts to reconstruct the moment when the little boy was last seen.
On Sunday, in the rain and the cold, the hamlet was once again cut off from the world, as it has already been on several occasions for nine months as part of the investigation. A police roadblock placed at the exit of Vernet, just after the village church, blocked the only road to Haut-Vernet.
