What we know about the disappearance in Vendée of Karine Esquivillon, a 54-year-old woman who has not been heard from since the end of March

She didn’t give “no news” since March 27. Karine Esquivillon (or Pialle, her married name) disappeared in Vendée. In an attempt to find her, the national gendarmerie issued a call for witnesses on May 9. This disappearance is considered worrying by the public prosecutor of La Roche-sur-Yon, who opened, on April 17, a judicial investigation against X for “kidnapping and forcible confinement”. The husband says to himself, convinced that his wife is “left voluntarily”, as he told France Télévisions on Monday, May 22. Here is what we know about this case and its gray areas.

Her husband reported her missing after a week

According to the call for witnesses issued by the gendarmes of the Nantes research section, in charge of the investigation, Karine Esquivillon disappeared on Monday March 27, around 4:30 p.m., at a place called La Malnoue, located 2 kilometers from Maché, a small rural town of 1,500 inhabitants, in the heart of Vendée. This is where this 54-year-old woman, “thin”to hairs “black, mid-length, curly”, lives with her husband, Michel Pialle, and their three children, two of whom are still young, according to France 3 Pays de la Loire. Karine Esquivillon is also the mother of two other children, from a first union.

Karine Esquivillon “was at the time of her departure dressed in a gray sweater, black pants, a black coat and carried a black handbag with chain”, specifies the call for witnesses. For the moment, we do not know more about the circumstances of his disappearance.

Her husband did not report her until April 3, a week later. According to him, the couple was “separate” for four years, but lived “under the same roof”. “We quickly realized that she would have had trouble financially supporting the house alone”he explained, facing the camera, to France Télévisions, specifying that she had stopped working to take care of their son with a hearing disability.

“The Day She Left”he assures, “She told me she wouldn’t come with me to college” to pick up the children. He assures that his wife vanished while he went to retrieve the cat in the garden. He says he received an SMS shortly afterwards: “Tired of living together but not as a couple, I’m going to look for something, I’ll come back to you for the children.”

His phone was found intact without a SIM card

On April 9, the mayor of Maché, Frédéric Rager, found Karine Esquivillon’s laptop, while he was on a family walk 2 kilometers from the couple’s home, reports France 3 Pays de la Loire. The phone was in a ditch, “very clean, dry”, “it turned on and had a comfortable battery level”, says the aedile. However, the SIM card had been removed. Michel Pialle says his wife sent text messages “until March 31” to tell them not to worry.

“We know this family since they have lived in the town for twenty years, but they are very discreet people who live far from the town. We hardly ever saw them”, Frédéric Rager told France Bleu Loire Océan. “The gendarmerie is investigating. It is necessarily something that questions and worries. All I hope is that the outcome will be happy.” In and around his city, many investigations have been carried out. Significant resources were committed at the start of the research: dog teams were deployed, divers responsible for probing the wetlands and criminal identification technicians dispatched, the gendarmerie told franceinfo.

His sister and son do not believe in a voluntary disappearance

“She is a rather fearful person, who liked to be at home with her children”, described the sister of Karine Esquivillon. On BFMTV, Adélaïde Esquivillon assures her: she does not see her sister “leaving in the middle of the afternoon like that before his children come home from school”. “It does not correspond to my sister (…) She is a loving mother who did everything for her family, for her home”, she continues, sobs in her voice. Adélaïde Esquivillon says to herself “very worried” and has “a bad feeling”.

The eldest son of the deceased, from a first marriage, also speaks, in The Parisianfrom a mother “homebody” And “a bit cowardly”. “It seems impossible to me that my mother could have left leaving the youngest two”he says. “I have no more news from her, not even a message for my birthday when I have a close relationship with her”abounds in Le Figaroone of the daughters of the disappeared.

Her husband claims she ‘left voluntarily’

Karine Esquivillon’s husband continues the interviews to give his version of the facts. Michel Pialle insists that his wife left voluntarily. “She took money, her wallet, her purse,” he lists with France Bleu Loire Océan. “Lots of things, which she had already prepared in advance, I think.” He develops his theory on voluntary departures in front of the France 3 Pays de la Loire camera: “If she wants to rebuild her life, let her tell us, of course it will take us months, even a few years of therapy in quotation marks, even for children with child psychiatrists, to digest, but we will not judge her, it is his choice. But at least we will all be reassured and freed”he says from his living room.

On his Facebook page, now devoted to the disappearance of his wife, he urges Internet users to share the call for witnesses “everywhere and especially in the south of France place” Or “she wanted to go”. But he is also the target of certain groups, which present him as the number 1 suspect: “Rumors say that I am a killer, that my garden must be searched, when it has already been done. The investigators passed products everywhere, they even plunged into my well, they checked everything”, he assures France Bleu. “If anyone comes to my house or takes pictures of the children, there will be a complaint directly”, he warns. The investigators, them, continue their investigations in search of the disappeared, assures the prosecutor to franceinfo, who does not wish to communicate on the people heard in this case.