Little Emile’s death ‘may never be solved’: Detectives fear the mystery of the two-year-old whose remains were found in a French mountain village eight months after his disappearance ‘may remain a mystery’

Experts fear the mystery surrounding the tragic death of two-year-old Émile may never be solved after his remains were discovered eight months after his disappearance from the family home in the Alps.

“I fear that whatever we do in this case, it will remain a mystery,” former chief prosecutor Jacques Dallest admitted, while investigators were unable to elaborate on how the child’s bones and skull were found after thorough searches in the neighborhood got away from the house.

“I’m not sure that even if we discover the rest of the body, we will have enough elements to determine the causes of death,” he added, as reported by The times.

The remains of young Émile were found by hikers last Saturday “on a path between the church and the chapel” of the quiet mountain village of Le Vernet in southeastern France, according to mayor François Balique.

The spot, barely a kilometer from where Émile disappeared in July while staying with his grandfather, had already been combed by gendarmes with a “tooth comb,” the mayor told Le Figaro.

With little else to go on, investigators are now wondering whether the bones could have been moved by a person or animal – while authorities wonder how the remains weren’t found sooner.

Restrictions remain in place while police gather more information about the remains found

A hiker discovered the remains on March 30, about eight months after Emile apparently left the family home on July 8 last year.

Authorities were able to identify the bones as Emile’s, but were frustrated that they had been moved.

Jean-Luc Blachon, the prosecutor leading the case, said the hiker was not a suspect, suggesting she only wanted to “do the right thing” by taking the remains to police and leading them back to the site.

But Blachon also admitted that police were no closer to solving the mystery.

“Between the fall of the child, the manslaughter and the murder, we still cannot choose one hypothesis over the other,” he told a news conference last week.

Mayor Balique said Monday he could not understand why the remains had not been found earlier.

‘There are people who regularly use the path in the area. I used it last week. The volunteer searchers have been there, I’m sure.

‘I was there during the beating (on the ground by those looking for Émile) and the gendarmes could not have missed him with the dogs.

‘There was even felling there in the autumn. The woodcutters saw nothing either. It’s incomprehensible.’

“I can’t help but believe that there is an adult involved in this case. Émile would never have gone alone to where he was found,” he added.

Gilles Thézan, a resident of Haut-Vernet, told Le Parisien: ‘There is a trick going on.

‘The body was found only one or two kilometers from Haut-Vernet, in a place that had already been searched and searched again, mainly with dogs.

‘Everything was raked from top to bottom. There’s no way anyone wouldn’t have seen it before.”

Marie-Laure Pezant, a spokeswoman for the gendarmerie, said the bones may have been placed there by a person or animal, or moved by changing weather patterns.

But a source close to the investigation insisted that “animals are unlikely to bring human remains back to the village where someone has gone missing.”

This photo shows a general view of the Alpine hamlet of Le Haut-Vernet on March 31, 2024

Until last week, there was no trace of the toddler since he went missing, and investigators refused to rule out any theory for the tragedy, including kidnapping and murder.

Émile was officially in the care of his grandfather, Philippe Vedovini, on the day of his disappearance while his parents took a break.

A witness saw Mr Vedovini, a physiotherapist-osteopath, chopping wood outside his home around the time Émile is said to have wandered off.

Volunteers joined authorities last July to help search the area in the small hamlet. population 25but no clues have been found.

Last Thursday, researchers returned to the hamlet to reconstruct the last sighting with 17 people, including members of the family.