More than 48 hours after the disappearance of little Émile, investigations are continuing at Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. This Monday evening, the prosecutor asked citizens not to go to the village to help in the search, much to the dismay of the volunteers mobilized.
In all, 800 people have been mobilized since Emile’s disappearance, and they have come by the hundreds in recent days. Volunteers who came spontaneously to help the police in their search. Some have come from Dunkirk, Var de Marseille or villages not far from Vernet with one ambition: to find Émile, two and a half years old, vanished since Saturday evening. However, Monday evening, July 10, the prosecutor indicated that investigators will no longer need help on Tuesday. “From tomorrow morning, the site will be closed to anyone from outside the town.“, indicated Rémy Avon, the public prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains. In other words: the volunteers are called to return home.
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Among the volunteers, many spent several hours combing the upper part of the village, where the little boy was last seen. Benjamin arrived from Digne-les-Bains, with his family, to lend a hand. Stopping the beatings is, for him, incomprehensible: “We still haven’t found him so there are always all the possibilities. I think we could keep looking. As long as we haven’t found him, we continue. We must not close!”
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Benjamin’s father, Sébastien, wonders about the new strategy of the gendarmes: to rake once again the top of the village, what the volunteers have been doing all day. For him, it’s clear, Émile is not there: “I don’t think he’s around the village, we really looked. Afterwards, should we look further now? I don’t know, I’m not a policeman.”
“Another type of investigation begins”
The whole family is together in this investigation: the grandmother, Jocelyne, for her part, underlines an important point. “Why deprive yourself of so many volunteers, so many pairs of legs to survey such a vast and special territory?” Jocelyne explains that“don’t lose hope” “The more you search, the better. It’s discouraging to say that we’re closing. They may be right. We don’t have to judge.“
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Further, more meticulous investigations are announced today. Phone records will be reviewed again. There are also two houses in the village of 125 inhabitants to be excavated. If the prosecutor has decided to close the search (Monday evening), it is because there are reasons: it may be more than a disappearance”believes a volunteer, Geoffrey, from a neighboring town of Vernet.
“It might not just be a disappearance, it might be a kidnapping, it might be a murder, it might be everything… We don’t hope so. He’s a child who never has anything asked.”
Geoffrey, a volunteerat franceinfo
Before continuing:It’s another type of investigation that starts,” he notes. “I find it completely normal that they go on the scientific. Yesterday, I came with my dog, and he pointed out places to me. I would like the scientific police to find these places too. It’s better to let them do their job.”he slips.
This question is shared by many volunteers. For the moment, the public prosecutor affirms that several administrative criteria are still missing to launch the kidnapping alert.
Disappearance of Emile: the report by Yvan Plantey for franceinfo
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