“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 analyzes which made it possible to conclude on March 31 that these were the bones of the child Émile Soleil. »
Additional research
According to information from BFMTV, it was a walker who discovered a skull yesterday, in the middle of the day.
According to the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor, the Ircgn is continuing “criminalistic” analyzes of the bones. For its part, the gendarmerie is deploying resources to “undertake additional research” in the area in which they were found, without providing any information on the cause of the child’s death. On site, the entrance to the hamlet was blocked and the scene “frozen” by the police.
The lawyer for Émile’s grandparents, Me Isabelle Colombani, says she does not communicate “out of respect for the family, especially on Easter weekend”. “We’re going to let this Easter weekend pass and then we’ll see,” she simply told “Libération”.
The mayor of Vernet, François Balique, told him that “no one” was aware of the discovery this Saturday. He said he was “relieved” but “very sad”.
This discovery of bones is 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.
A scenario, a sort of reconstruction of the facts, even took place for the first time on Thursday in Haut-Vernet, a hamlet of 25 inhabitants attached to the village of Vernet, with 17 people, including all the people present on the day of the disappearance of the toddler. However, the mystery remained unsolved after this act of investigation after which no information had filtered out.
It is also too early to know whether or not the discovery of the child’s remains on Saturday is linked to this event organized two days earlier. Until now, much attention had focused on Émile’s maternal grandfather, Philippe V., who had custody of the child that day.
Placed under assisted witness status in an investigation into alleged sexual violence and assault in the early 1990s within a private religious school in Pas-de-Calais, this avenue has always been studied, “at the same level” than the others, according to a source close to the matter interviewed a few days ago.
Nine months of investigation
On July 8, on vacation in a family home, Émile, then two and a half years old, escaped the vigilance of his grandparents. They have been looking for him since around 5 p.m. In vain. Two witnesses say they saw him walking in the hamlet but with conflicting accounts. His parents, very religious Catholics living in La Bouilladisse, in Bouches-du-Rhône, were not present that day.
Several searches were carried out over the following days, again in vain.