After ten days of intensive search, investigators no longer seem to have any hope of finding other bones of Emile. It was a hiker in her sixties who, on Saturday March 30, 2024, discovered a skull and clothes belonging to the little boy disappeared during a walk around Haut-Vernet. A few days later, while major excavations had been organized to try to find the rest of the bones, the gendarmes from the Marseille research section finally got their hands on another “little piece of bone” of the childas revealed The Parisian Monday April 8.
And while Emile’s skeleton has not been completely found, at least as far as we know, the public prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence finally announced the end of research operationsbusinesses on 45.3 hectares in recent days: “The search for the body of Emile Soleil set up in the territory of the commune of Haut-Vernet from March 30, 2024 following the discovery of bones by a walker was lifted today at 3:35 p.m.indicated Jean-Luc Blachon in a press release shared on Wednesday April 10, 2024.
What does the end of the search mean for the continuation of the investigation into Emile’s disappearance?
But then, what will be the next steps in the investigation? The magistrate specifies that “From now on, judicial information will continue in the light of the results of the discoveries made and the ongoing expertise with the aim of determining the circumstances of Emile’s death”. Indeed, at this stage of the investigations, the gendarmes still do not know the precise date of Emile’s death, as well as the circumstances in which it occurred. Thus, the “bodily elements”namely the bones, and the “effects” little boy’s personal belongings, that is to say his clothes, are currently analyzed by the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN). For the moment, we only know that fractures, cracks and post-mortem bite marks have been identified on Emile’s skull, suggesting that it was moved by one or more animals. “No ante-mortem trauma was observed”, had already indicated the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor, during a press conference on April 2, 2024.