The body of little Emile, who disappeared in July 2023, has been found near the hamlet of Haut-Vernet. The bones were found on Saturday and “genetic identification analyses” led to the conclusion that they belong to the 2.5-year-old child. The public prosecutor in Aix-en-Provence said this in a statement issued on Sunday.
After a months-long search, the mystery that began in July 2023 comes to an end today. In a press release, the Aix-en-Provence public prosecutor’s office announced on Sunday that the bones of little Emile Soleil, aged 2.5, were discovered on Saturday “near the hamlet of Vernet”.
“On March 30, 2024, the Gendarmerie Nationale was informed of the discovery of bones near the hamlet of Vernet,” he explained. According to BFMTV, a skull was discovered by a hiker in the middle of the day yesterday. The researchers confiscated the bones. These were then immediately transferred to the IRCGN (Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale) for DNA analysis. This led to the conclusion on March 31 that the bones were those of the child Emile Soleil. The family heard the news on Sunday morning.
In its press release, the public prosecutor announced that “the IRCGN continues its forensic analysis of the bones,” while the Gendarmerie Nationale “will deploy resources to conduct additional research in the geographical area where they were found.”
Emile was last seen on July 8 last year, by two neighbors with conflicting stories. He had just arrived for the summer holidays at his grandparents’ holiday home in Haut-Vernet, a hamlet of 25 inhabitants located at an altitude of 1,200 meters. All houses in the hamlet and other places elsewhere that could be linked to the case were searched during the course of the investigation. The search was called off several days later because a young child was unlikely to survive the summer heat.
The investigation was initially opened as a case of suspicious disappearance in Digne-les-Bains, but was quickly transferred to two investigating judges in Aix-en-Provence and subsequently converted into a criminal charge of “kidnapping” and “captivity”.
Police returned to Le Vernet this week. The village was cordoned off on Thursday and seventeen people, including family and neighbors, were called in to chart Émile’s last moments before his disappearance. It is not yet clear whether this was a crime or an accident.