Death of Émile Soleil

On 8 July 2023, two-year-old Émile Soleil went missing in the French commune of Le Vernet, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. On 30 March 2024 remains of the boy were found, confirming his death.

Victim
Émile is the eldest son of Marie and Colomban Soleil. The family resided in La Bouilladisse, a small town of located 30 km from Marseille. Émile was a little blond boy with brown eyes, at the time of disappearance he was two and a half years old.

Disappearance
On the morning of July 8, 2023, Marie Soleil brought Émile to his maternal grandparents — Philippe and Anne Vedovini —  who were spending their summer vacation in a house, purchased in the early 2000s, in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet, perched on a green peak in the commune of Vernet, at the foot of the Massif des Trois-Évêchés.

That day, the grandparents were at home with eight of their ten children, aged 7 to 18 years old. Émile's mother Marie, the oldest of the ten, left after dropping off the boy. Bathilde, the second born, joins the family every Sunday. In the morning, Émile's young uncles and aunts were busy building a cabin higher up than the house, towards the Labouret pass.

Around 5pm, Émile played in the garden waiting to be taken for a walk. The grandfather loaded stakes and electric wire into the trunk of his car to fence a meadow intended for his horses. At the same time, Émile walked down the street leaving the house. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt and white shorts. It was thought that he wanted to return to the cabin his uncles were building that morning.

According to the formal statements of two witnesses - a teenager and a sixty-year-old - the boy was last seen around 5:15 p.m. approximately 20 metres from the family home.

At 6:12 p.m., after searching in vain for Émile for around 45 minutes, the grandparents reported his disappearance to the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence gendarmerie, who immediately began a search.

Saturday, July 8
Under the authority of the fire brigade, about a hundred people from the town and neighbouring villages mobilized. A helicopter flew over the area and three gendarmerie dogs scoured the area. The investigation lasted from 6:40 p.m. to 3 a.m. and combed 12 hectares of land in the immediate vicinity of the disappearance site. But they are in vain and the investigation focuses on the hamlet, where Émile was last seen.

Sunday, July 9
The day after the disappearance, Rémy Avon, public prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains, launched an appeal for witnesses. Not all legal criteria are met to initiate a kidnapping alert procedure, this call collects more than 1,400 reports, most of which will lead to nothing.

An investigation into flagrance has been opened "to look for the causes of disturbing disappearance". The grandparents are interrogated. The search resumes with the support of 200 volunteers. The gendarmerie uses drones and helicopters equipped with thermal cameras. Search and rescue dogs of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) are mobilised. In particular, they employ bloodhounds, which have a strong sense of smell. According to the General of Gendarmerie Jacques-Charles Fombonne "the dogs spotted his track in two places, within a radius of 20 m around the house, then nothing, which may mean that at that moment the child got into a vehicle."

In the evening, during a press conference, the prefect and the public prosecutor confirmed that two witnesses had seen the child in a steep street in the village, but they didn't worry about it because it is common to see children playing alone in this small hamlet. The prosecutor clarifies that at this stage, no hypothesis is privileged or ruled out, "We don't have any clue to this, we are on the search operations which are the vital priority for this child".

Monday, July 10
On Monday, the search resumed with the help of 500 volunteers. In the evening, during a press conference, the prefect of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Marc Chappuis said that for two days, nearly 800 volunteers would help the institutional services within a 5 km radius. He adds that the system will be adapted the next morning. He thanked the volunteers who had committed themselves in the last few hours but asked them to make way for a more suitable system, assisted by soldiers. He considers that at this stage "the child's vital prognosis is engaged" due to the circumstances, age, temperatures and topography. According to Rémy Avon, "research is still ongoing, with no progress".

In the afternoon, a Facebook group published a call to prayer: "Please pray to Venerable Sister Benoîte Rencurel, mystic of the apparitions of Laus. The devil regularly took her to the mountain to persecute her, and the angels brought her back. Emile's mom ».

In accordance with the procedure, the investigation of flagrance is converted into a preliminary inquiry.

Tuesday, July 11
Until July 13, 2023, the gendarmes carried out "sweeping operations" which remained in vain. In the evening, the prosecutor Rémy Avon declared that all the 30 buildings making up the hamlet of Haut-Vernet had been searched, 12 vehicles visited, the 25 inhabitants of the town questioned and 12 hectares of land "meticulously combed." A total of 97 hectares have been explored. According to Le Monde, it is "undoubtedly one of the most important judicial sweep operations ever conducted".

Insisting on the fact that "no scenario is more likely, no scenario is excluded", prosecutor Rémy Avon confirms that the investigation is entering a second phase.

Discovery of a hiker
On Saturday, March 30, 2024, a hiker brought a plastic bag containing bones she discovered below the hamlet of Haut-Vernet to the gendarmerie. The bones consist of a skull and teeth, which the hiker claimed to have found on a narrow forest road, in the vicinity of the place called Les Auches, a wooded and rather steep area 1.7 kilometres and a 25-minute walk from the hamlet, which has already been searched previously.

The next day, the public prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence announced that investigators from the Forensic Science Department of the French National Gendarmerie had established by genetic identification that these were the bones of Émile, thus confirming his death. Initial analyses of the skull, which is missing the maxilla and a tooth, show post-mortem cracks, bites and small fractures, probably of animal origin.

Resumption of the search
The search was then relaunched near the site of the discovery. On Tuesday, April 2, 2024, the prosecutor announced that clothing (a T-shirt, shoes and panties) was found 150 m below the place where the skull was discovered, scattered over about ten meters. Soon after, a small bone fragment was found nearby.

These discoveries have not yet made it possible to determine whether the body could have been moved, either by a third party or by natural elements, or the cause of death, but analyses are ongoing.