Rarely has a gendarmerie investigation mobilized so many personnel over such long periods. Following the discovery ten days ago of the skull of Emile, who disappeared in Haut-Vernet (Haute-Provence) on July 8, 2023, then of his clothes and the announcement this Monday of the unearthing of a another bone, 20 minutes takes stock of the progress and consequences of what is already one of the news stories of the decade in France.
A perimeter sealed off at least until April 15
Journalists, soldiers, legal teams and residents have been used to it since the first hours of Emile’s research. François Balique, the mayor of Vernet, extended until April 15 the municipal decree prohibiting access to Haut-Vernet taken for a week just after the Similar bans were already ordered for twenty days last August, and at the beginning Searches.
The excavations, which are still continuing, mobilize a total of around a hundred gendarmes and soldiers.
The experts break camp
After the discovery of the new bone, experts from the IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie), broke camp at Le Vernet and returned to their laboratories in Pontoise, in the Paris region. However, they are likely to return “if necessary”, specifies the gendarmerie.
Their departure means that the technicians have certainly completed the virtual modeling, carried out using drones, of the places where the bones and clothing were discovered as well as the adjoining stream, the object of the investigators’ attention. Digital materials and data that IRCGN members will be able to continue to process and exploit from their Paris headquarters.
The legionnaires arrive
A new shade of uniform was deployed in the massif and hamlet of Haut-Vernet with the arrival of nine legionnaires from the second foreign engineering regiment of Saint-Christol, in Vaucluse, report ” BFM ” And Provence.
Specialized in operational excavations and engagement in the mountains, the military will in turn have to continue the meticulous search for new clues.
The accidental trail explored thoroughly?
“These first elements bring us back more towards the thesis of an accident than that of a crime”, explained to 20 minutes François Daoust, former head of the gendarmerie’s judicial division following the discovery of the child’s skull and clothes.
The former boss of the gendarmerie experts indicated that the attention of investigators should be focused on the downstream, upstream and surroundings of the stream, located a twenty-five minute walk from Haut-Vernet, near which were found the clothes and the skull which showed small fractures and traces of bites suffered after the death, specified the prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon. It is in this same area that the new bone announced this Monday was discovered. An advance which, however, does not allow us to move forward on the cause of the child’s death, the magistrate said this Monday evening.
As it stands and if no analysis of the skeletal or clothing remains reveals evidence of violence endured before death, an accidental scenario could emerge where little Emile escaped the supervision of his grandparents before drowning. into the river or crash into its slopes. At least this is the avenue that the prosecutor seems to want to explore thoroughly, who at this time still does not rule out any hypothesis.