A first drive started this morning in the hope of finding traces of Leslie Hoorelbeke and Kevin Trompat in the woods and paths around Prahecq. They were last seen there at the end of last November.
At 9 a.m. on January 5, around fifty people gathered in front of the church of Prahecq, in Deux-Sèvres, to carry out a search in the hope of finding traces of the young couple of 21 and 22 years old, disappeared since November 26, 2022. A surge of solidarity launched Monday, January 2 on the Facebook group “let’s mobilize to find Leslie and Kevin as well as Onyx” by Kevin’s mother-in-law, Karine Prat. For her, questioned by the journalists present on the spot during a press conference, what the relatives are looking for today “that’s what we would like not to find.”
She tells the reasons that led them to organize it. “A search was not made by the gendarmerie, we did not hear about it. We are not given the information, and we do not want to interfere with the investigation, which is logical. (…) We would like to find nothing, of course, but if we stay without doing anything, we won’t be well either. We have to get active. We do this because we have been contacted by fortune-tellers, clocks… Even if we don’t believe it.”
Look at the mounds of earth or the places where the earth has turned over in the surrounding woods, scrutinize the low walls, the ditches, take photos of the things found without touching them, not to move away from each other… so many instructions that have were given to the different groups of volunteers. Some remain in the woods of the Château de Prahecq, other groups have moved away to the villages of Fors and Marigny. For journalist Sophie Carbonnel, present on site for Sud-Ouest “nobody really knows where to go and what to look for in this small wood of Prahecq. Research is done haphazardly.” Really started a little before noon following various delays, this first beat has no official end time and should continue for a good part of the day.
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For many volunteers present, the hope of finding the young couple alive is slim
Coming from the neighboring town of Niort, Vendée, Charente-Maritime where Leslie is from or even further afield, nearly fifty people answered the call. Among them, if all want to keep hope, the tone is not very encouraging. Cédric, a close friend of Kevin’s father questioned pby our colleagues from South-West, has known the young man since childhood. He is part of the hard core of the investigation carried out by the relatives of the young couple. More than a month after their disappearance, he admits it “I’m afraid they are no longer of this world.” A fear shared even by those who joined the hunt without being close to the young couple. Joël and Jean-Marie, for example, live in a nearby town. “We do not know the family of the disappeared, nor the disappeared themselves. But we feel concerned. It is a civic engagement. This story is really curious. We fear the worst.”