The remains of were found Emile Soleil the 2 and a half year old boy, who disappeared from the small village of Haut-Vernet, in the French Alps, on July 8, 2023. Nine months later a hiker presented herself with a skull to the local gendarmerie. After initial investigations, on Easter Sunday the police revealed that they were the bones of little Emile.
Emile’s remains found
—
The parents who are part of one are shocked very religious community and who in a released statement commented how “Emile is now watching over them”. The mayor of the town, which is located a few kilometers from the border with Piedmont, explained that the remains were found in an area that had been thoroughly searched during the searches, in a place not accessible to cars and mostly from cows. Last summer dozens of people including law enforcement and volunteers participated in the search for the child but according to a spokesperson for the national police it is entirely possible that the remains escaped during that phase. The same source, however, added that it is also possible that the bones could have been brought to that point at a later time: “By human, animal or even weather conditions”.
the investigations
—
The investigations into the case, which inevitably stalled over time, will now regain strength. Emile had just arrived at his maternal grandparents’ mountain home at the time of his disappearance. The parents live in La Bouilla said, between Aix en Provence and Marseille, and they were not present with the child who was entrusted to his grandparents. Just the maternal grandfather he is one of the people on whom the investigations were immediately focused because he would have been with Emile at the time of his disappearance. Some neighbors would have seen the child walking alone near the house while his 58-year-old grandfather Philippe was loading poles into the car to build a fence for the horses. Among the hypotheses, the possibility had also emerged that the child could have been sucked into a combine harvester while he was in the tall grass.
the maternal grandfather
—
Grandfather Philippe was described as a authoritarian person, physiotherapist by profession, father of 10 children who educated at home in a rigorous and traditionalist way between Latin masses and Gregorian chants. In the nineties he was part of the community of Riaumont, where there was also a boarding school in which Philippe had the role of supervisor with the task of enforcing discipline. He was heard as a witness during an investigation linked to some complaints brought forward by students of the college. The investigations into Emile’s case therefore focus entirely on the family. Father Colomban and mother Marie, a physiotherapist like Philippe, are also part of a Catholic religious association that many compare to a sect.
