Sunday March 31, after nine months of intense research, the Aix-en-Provence public prosecutor’s office announced the discovery of bones belonging to the little Emiledisappeared in Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), July 8, 2023.
The discovery of the skull of the two and a half year old boy by a hiker was followed, a few days later, by the discovery of clothes and other bones belonging to Emile. For now, analyzes are continuing to determine the causes of death of the little boy who had escaped the supervision of his grandparents with whom he was on vacation.
Throughout the investigation into Emile’s disappearance, his grandfather was particularly scrutinized by investigators. Their interest focused in particular on his past, when he was heard as an assisted witness in a case involving rape, sexual assault and mistreatment of children placed in the custody of the community. Catholic Holy Cross of Riaumont, in Liévin (Pas-de-Calais). A community in which he had worked for more than two years as an educator, in the early 1990s, under the name “Brother Philippe”.
On this subject, France Dimanche cites the man who was 26 years old at the time of the events and who is accused of violence by former boarders : “the kicks, yes, I gave them to the butt. I gave a few slaps. I used punches sometimes, but, for example, at shoulder level.”. Should we therefore conclude that the man could have become a criminal ? Jacques Pradel doesn’t think so. In an interview with France Dimanche, the author of the book Technical and scientific police. The CHoc of the future (Editions Rocher) declares as follows:Yes, parental spanking is now prohibited by law, but not all parents who use it are potential criminals either..
If Jacques Pradel does not subscribe to the thesis according to which the grandfather’s past would make him a criminal, the journalist specializing in criminal affairs does not mince his words regarding his responsibility in the disappearance of his grandson. For now, he explains, “the simple accident thesis remains one of the most plausible“and if this hypothesis were proven”maybe it would be better for his family“.
And to continue, that it would be better if the death of little Emile was due to “a banal accident, for which we can certainly feel guilty, the grandfather having been negligent enough to let his grandson leave the family home to wander around in the street, without the slightest supervision“. A guilt that man carries on his shoulders for nine months but which could be much worse if the scenario of the death of his grandson was different. The accident thesisis perhaps better than imagining the horrors that little Emile could have endured if by chance he had fallen into the hands of a pedophile of the maniacal and murderous species“, he concludes.