Horror of little Emile and its surprising similarities to BBC’s The Missing: a little boy disappears on holiday, only to be found dead after a lengthy search… but questions remain about the child’s remains – just like the James Nesbitt drama

The discovery of the body of French toddler Émile Soleil last week near his grandparents’ home in a French Alpine village has done little to answer the many questions surrounding the two-year-old’s disappearance.

The case has been shrouded in mystery for months, giving rise to a number of theories about what may have happened to the little boy – with the reason behind his disappearance still unclear.

Many have noted chilling parallels between the case and the hit drama The Missing, starring James Nesbitt and Frances O’Connor, in which a young boy disappears while on holiday with his family in France – as Émile did.

In the BBC series, a young boy named Ollie disappears, with his disappearance remaining unexplained and his whereabouts being speculated for years before he is finally confirmed dead.

But questions remain about what happened to the child’s body at the end of the series, and as speculation continues about what really happened to Émile, comparisons between the two mysteries have resurfaced.

Émile, who lived with his parents near Marseille but had been on holiday at his grandparents’ home in rural Haut Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region, went missing last July.

In The Missing, Tony loses sight of his son during a visit to a busy outdoor bar while on holiday in the French countryside – in a chilling echo of the real case, which saw Émile disappear under his family’s noses.

Comparisons have been made during the real case with the show after French police previously admitted they had ‘no clues’ as to how little Emile disappeared.

In the first series of The Missing (2014), starring Nesbitt and O’Connor, a couple struggle to come to terms with their son’s unsolved apparent kidnapping, left without answers eight years after his disappearance.

In a shocking twist, it is revealed that their son had not been kidnapped, but rather bundled ‘lifeless’ into a car by a hit-and-run driver – a theory that French police believed could have happened to Émile.

At one point, reports said officials were investigating whether Emile “could have been hit by a car or a tractor” and his body was removed.

The theory was sparked after blood was discovered on the front of a car – but it later turned out to be that of an animal.

When the boy went missing, a major search was launched involving hundreds of local police officers, which has now tragically culminated in the discovery of the two-year-old boy’s remains.

As in the gripping BBC drama, Émile’s death was confirmed after a lengthy search, punctuated by the hope that he might still be alive.

Tragically, prosecutors confirmed this week that the boy’s skull and bones had been found Saturday, later revealing that his clothes were found nearly 500 feet away from his slightly broken and shredded remains.

His clothing could provide valuable evidence of what happened to the little boy – as Ollie’s scarf does in The Missing – although police have not yet revealed any possible clues.

Prosecutor in the Émile Soleil case Jean-Luc Blachon said wild animals may have scattered Émile’s remains and could also have been responsible for “small fractures” and “bite marks” on his skull.

A fall could have damaged Émile’s skull, but Blachon said other theories, including “murder or manslaughter,” had not been ruled out.

So far, there has been no trace of the toddler since he went missing eight months ago, and investigators refused to rule out any theory for the tragedy, including kidnapping and murder.

Police conducted a ‘thorough search’ – as was the case in The Missing, where a major search is launched and followed by international media.

But despite the efforts of police and volunteers, it was ultimately hikers who found Émile’s bones in the idyllic Alpine hamlet of Le Vernet on Saturday, before handing them over to police.

A source close to the investigation told MailOnline that only part of the body was found, with some bones and the skull recovered.

Forensic investigators continued to analyze the recovered skull and bones, but have not yet provided a cause of death.

This was said by Mayor François Balique of Le Vernet Le Figaro in last week’s newspaper that Emile’s remains were located “on a path between the church and the chapel” of the village – an area he said rather ‘thoroughly searched by gendarmes’ with a ‘tooth comb’.

He called it ‘absolutely incomprehensible’ that Émile himself got into trouble.

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

This adds an extremely disturbing element to the progress of the investigation, the source said, suggesting that the remains were deposited there some time after Émile’s disappearance.

‘Animals are unlikely to bring human remains back to the village where someone has gone missing.

“This leads to the theory that someone returned Émile’s remains, possibly very recently,” the source said.

As the investigation continues this week, national gendarmerie spokesperson Marie-Laure Pezant said anthropologists who are also “specialists in soil analysis” are studying the site where his partial remains were found.

“We have experts from the criminal research institute of the gendarmerie who have traveled to Haut-Vernet to be able to analyze the discovery area,” she said at a press conference today, according to Radio France. “This investigation will start with them today.”

She said the anthropologists hope to determine whether or not these bones were on site, or if they could have been brought back by other means: a human, an animal that would have transported them, or weather conditions that would have changed the soil and what would have brought them this far.’

Pezant acknowledged there is “a small chance” that investigators missed the body during their previous searches.

She added: ‘We had committed a lot of resources, but given the configuration of the site with the abundant vegetation in July, this could have complicated the investigation and we might have missed it. It is a hypothesis that exists. Then there is also the possibility that these bones were later returned to the area.’

When Emile disappeared last year, his grandparents were spending the summer in their holiday home they had bought in 2000 in the small village in the heart of the Trois-Évêchés massif.

On that day, eight of the grandparents’ ten grandchildren were in the house, who, apart from two-year-old Émile, were seven to eighteen years old.

That morning, some of Émile’s uncles and aunts, who were also in the house, were building a hut nearby where the children could play.

By noon, as far as the adults in the house were concerned, Émile was happily playing in the garden of his grandparents’ house.

However, when it was 5 p.m., the family was preparing to leave the house for a walk when Émile took advantage of the inattention, officials have since said. His grandparents wanted to put him in the car, but discovered that he was no longer in the garden.

Now that their son’s body has finally been discovered, Émile’s parents, Marie and Colomban Soleil, have spoken out, detailing their “pain and sadness” in a statement released to the press through their lawyer Jerome Triomphe on Easter Sunday.

‘This heartbreaking news was feared… (They) know on this Resurrection Sunday that Émile watches over them in the light and tenderness of God.

‘Marie and Colomban would like to thank everyone who helped and supported them, as well as the investigating judges and detectives, for their work, their professionalism, their personal commitment and their humanity that has given them these past months and especially on this day… But the pain and the sadness remains’.

‘The time has come for mourning, reflection and prayer.’