The mystery surrounding little Émile’s death has deepened after a new bone fragment was found near the site where the two-year-old boy’s skull was discovered in a village in the French Alps.
Émile Soleil’s skull was found by a walker on March 30 ‘on a path between the Church and the Chapel’ in the rural Alpine village of Haut Vernet, in southeastern France.
The place, less than a kilometer and a half from where Émile disappeared while he was at his grandfather’s house last July, had already been searched by the gendarmes with a “tooth comb”, according to the mayor told Le Figaro.
The prosecutor in the Émile Soleil case, Jean-Luc Blachon, claimed that wild animals may have scattered Émile’s remains and could also have been responsible for “small fractures” and “bite marks” on his skull.
Researchers have now found another bone fragment in the search area and finished their excavations in Haut Vernet at the weekend, believing they had achieved all they could. Le Parisian reports.
The skull of Émile Soleil (pictured) was found by a walker on March 30 “on a path between the Church and the Chapel” in the rural Alpine village of Haut Vernet, in southeastern France. The woman took the remains to the police.
French gendarmes argue on the road to the small village of Le Haut-Vernet, in the southern French Alps, in Le Vernet on March 31, 2024, after French investigators found the “bones” of a little boy who He disappeared last summer.
It is not known if investigators were able to recover the rest of Émile’s skeleton or if the bone fragment found could help determine whether the boy’s death was an accident or murder.
A source close to the investigation told Le Parisien: “The investigation is progressing well and continuing.”
Blachon previously said that while a fall could have damaged Émile’s skull, other theories, such as “murder or manslaughter,” had not been ruled out.
A hiker discovered the remains on March 30, about eight months after Émile apparently wandered away from the family home on July 8 of last year.
Authorities were able to identify that the bones belonged to Émile, but were frustrated that they had been moved.
Blachon said the walker was not a suspect, suggesting she just “wanted to do the right thing” by taking the remains to police and returning them to the scene.
But Blachon also admitted that police were no closer to solving the mystery.
“Between the child’s fall, the manslaughter and the murder, we still cannot favor one hypothesis over another,” he said earlier at a news conference.
On April 1, Mayor Balique said he could not understand why the remains had not been found sooner.
‘There are people who regularly use the nearby path. I used it last week. Volunteer searchers have been there, I’m sure.
“I was there during the beatings. [on the ground by those searching for Émile] and the gendarmes could not have lost him with the dogs.
‘In autumn there was even logging there. The woodcutters didn’t see anything either. It’s incomprehensible.’
This photograph shows a general view of the alpine village of Le Haut-Vernet on March 31, 2024.
Saturday’s macabre discovery was described today as a key development in a criminal investigation that has baffled detectives.
The gendarmes meticulously searched the outskirts of the town of Vernet last July.
‘I can’t help but believe that an adult is involved in this matter. “Émile would never have gone alone to the place where they found him,” he added.
Gilles Thézan, a resident of Haut-Vernet, told Le Parisien: “There is a trick.” The body was found just a kilometer or two away. [0.5 to 1 mile] of Haut-Vernet, in a place that had already been searched and investigated, in particular with dogs.
‘Everything was raked from top to bottom. There’s no way someone wouldn’t have seen it before.
Marie-Laure Pezant, a gendarmerie spokeswoman, said the bones may have been placed there by a person or animal, or moved by changes in weather patterns.
But a source close to the investigation insisted that “it is unlikely that the animals brought human remains to the town where someone disappeared.”
Until two weeks ago, there were no traces of the boy since his disappearance, and investigators refused to rule out any theories about the tragedy, including kidnapping and murder.
Émile was officially in the care of his grandfather, Philippe Vedovini, on the day of his disappearance, while his parents took a break.
A witness saw Mr Vedovini, a physiotherapist-osteopath, chopping wood outside his house at the time Émile is believed to have left.
Volunteers joined authorities last July to help search the small village area. population 25but there are no undiscovered clues.
On April 4, investigators returned to the village to reconstruct the last sighting with 17 people, including family members.