“We are devastated actually. » These words, pronounced with sobs in her voice, are those of Pauline Pasquier, one of the daughters of Véronique and Laurent Blond, the couple of bakers from Beaumont-de-Lomagne (Tarn-et-Garonne), who have been missing since on March 16 on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
The young woman told BFMTV this Friday morning that she had spoken to her mother for the last time two days before the hike from which her parents never returned. Pauline, who has just given birth to a little girl, asked Véronique for advice, who kept asking for photos of the baby.
A trader’s testimony
The bakers, fond of hiking, were on vacation in Madeira with their other daughter Johanna. It was she who raised the alarm on the evening of Saturday March 16 when she did not see them return from a hike that was supposed to be short and for which they had only brought two bottles of water and a cell phone. They left at 2:30 p.m. Pauline indicates that a trader from the north of the island saw her mother around “3:45 p.m. to 4 p.m.”. But in this very steep coastal landscape, extensive research has yielded nothing.
Pauline admits to being distraught in the face of the sometimes fragmentary information from the Portuguese authorities. “I feel a little helpless, a little lost,” she said. Sad too, because we have to face the facts, the chances are very slim of finding them alive.”
In France, the public prosecutor of Montauban opened an investigation for “disturbing disappearance”. A search of the couple’s home in Beaumont-de-Lomagne did not reveal any clues suggesting a voluntary disappearance. The mystery continues to deepen.