“I knew it was him,” says the hiker who discovered the child’s skull at the end of March

“It could have happened to someone else, it happened to me.” More than four months after the incident, the hiker who discovered little Emile’s skull and teeth in the spring confided in Provence, Saturday August 17. “It’s shocking, she testifies about this discovery. I knew it was him. (…) And then, seen the sector, it was not necessary to telling stories. I was persuadée that it was the skull of this child.”

Emile disappeared on July 8, 2023, after arriving for the summer holidays at his maternal grandparents’ house, in their second home in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet, attached to the village of Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). For nine months, the investigation had yielded nothing concrete, until the discovery on March 30 of the child’s skull and teeth by this walker, about 1.7 km from the hamlet.

“As the weather conditions were very difficult, with rain and wind mixed together, so many elements conducive to its disappearance, I thought it was good that I should pick up this little skull”, she describes to Provence. This is the first time I have worn a skull. It was very light. So, I made the decision to bring it back and report to the police.”

The investigating judges, who are leading the investigation in Aix-en-Provence, had immediately deployed dozens of gendarmes to the field. They were able to find clothes and a small piece of bone in the same area, below where the skull had been discovered. However, these discoveries have still not helped explain the child’s death. In-depth expert assessments are continuing in Pontoise, at the National Gendarmerie Criminal Research Institute (IRCGN).