The Dax Prosecutor in Landes confirms that the nine-year-old boy was found safe and sound with his father. They were arrested in Lot-et-Garonne. Eden’s schoolbag and telephone were discovered in a ditch in Soustons in the Landes. His father would have planned his departure with the child.
Young Eden, 9 years old, missing in Soustons in Landes since Thursday February 8, was found in the neighboring department of Lot-et-Garonne. The boy and his father are safe and sound, specifies the Public Prosecutor of Dax, this Friday, February 9 in a press release.
Following a call for witnesses launched by the national gendarmerie, significant human and aerial resources were deployed to locate the child and his father: 92 soldiers, a dog team and three helicopters.
They were located this Friday, February 9, around 4 p.m., by gendarmes from the Tonneins gendarmerie intervention squad, in the town of St Géraud.
The child’s father is taken into custody by local investigators.
According to the Dax public prosecutor, the first acts of investigation established that the departure of the father with the child appeared planned. Food and clothing purchases had been made accordingly, with the intention of not being able to be geolocated: his mobile phone had been left in the mobile home he occupies in the town of Magescq in the Landes.
Little Eden was picked up after school by his mother and then handed over to his father at 5 p.m. as part of his custody rights, the couple being separated. It was she who raised the alert around 6 p.m. on Thursday February 8 after a passerby found the child’s schoolbag and phone in a ditch.
According to Benoît Fontaine, public prosecutor of Dax, the father of the child is unknown to the police or gendarmerie services. He is not described as suicidal or violent. However, over time he would have developed survivalist ideas.