ALPINE CURSE
Was Emile’s body buried by wolves or was he snatched into a car? We look at clues which could reveal what happened
Prosecutors are keeping an open mind and this week refused to rule out murder or manslaughter
SCANNING the stark Alpine landscape, Christian Moller grimly shakes his head as he ponders the mystery of tragic two-year-old Emile Soleil’s last moments.
The tot’s tiny skull was discovered in a forested ravine last Saturday around a mile from his grandfather’s home — eight months after he disappeared.
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I ask Christian, born and bred among these mountains, if he thinks the boy could have made that 25-minute journey through the desolate landscape alone.
The ski instructor, 74, revealed: “It was 30C in the shade that day. For a child of two and a half who is alone? Impossible.”
Emile’s disappearance last year from the rustic mountain village of Le Vernet — around 100 miles from Marseille — has gripped France. Media here have raised comparisons with Britain’s torment over Madeleine McCann.
Both angelic-looking, the youngsters seemingly vanished without trace.
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Then, last weekend, a female hiker ambling through pine trees below Le Vernet stumbled upon a small human skull amid the foliage.
The woman, perhaps unable to get a mobile phone signal in this remote wilderness, then broke a cardinal rule and disturbed a potential crime scene.
She picked up her macabre discovery, put it in a plastic bag and brought it home before calling cops.
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While lending some solace to Emile’s devoutly religious family, the discovery of his remains has, as yet, done nothing to solve the riddle of his death. Had he been murdered or kidnapped?
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Or was he perhaps attacked by wolves roaming these rugged peaks?
Could Emile’s body have been hidden then moved to its final resting place?
Perhaps he simply wandered off before dying of thirst and hunger?
Prosecutors are keeping an open mind and this week refused to rule out murder or manslaughter.
The heartbreak is unfolding in a tiny village of just 125 souls that has already witnessed too much sorrow.
Standing on the sun deck of the Cafe Du Moulin, which offers a spectacular panorama, Christian points to a snow-capped peak looming over the village.
It is where Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed into a mountainside with a suicidal co-pilot at the controls in 2015.
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The youngest of the 150 who perished was seven- month-old Julian Pracz-Bandres, travelling home to Manchester with his mum Marina, 37.
A memorial to the innocents lies on the outskirts of Le Vernet, less than two miles from the disaster site.
Christian said: “We get people visiting the village all the time, asking, ‘Did you see the crash? Did you hear it explode?’.”
The cafe below also harbours a tragic story. In 2008, owner Jeanette Grosos was beaten to death by a customer.
Little wonder, perhaps, that Le Vernet suffers from what Christian calls “morbid tourism”. Some days, up to 40 rubbernecking drivers pass through its winding streets.
With a sweep of his arm, Christian then points to Haut-Vernet — the upper section of the village — where Emile was last seen alive.
It was July 8, 2023, and, although the village is situated at a height of 4,000ft, the heat was stifling.
Staunch Catholic Marie Soleil, 26, had dropped her son there the day before, having travelled from the home she shares with engineer husband Colomban, 27, in La Bouilladisse, near Marseille.
Emile — the elder of their two children — would be staying with Marie’s parents Philippe and Anne Vedovini, who bought a holiday cottage in the village in the early 2000s.
Framed by snow-dappled Alpine peaks, Haut-Vernet is truly idyllic.
Ancient honey-stoned farmhouses with rickety wooden blinds are clustered where thick pine forest gives way to lush meadows.
We get people visiting the village all the time, asking, ‘Did you see the crash? Did you hear it explode?’
Christian Moller
The Vedovinis were having a family gathering with eight of their ten kids.
Emile spent the morning building a cabin from chopped logs with his young relatives.
It was around 5pm when the tot, who had been playing in the garden, wandered off unseen by his family into Haut-Vernet.
At around 5.15pm he was spotted by two witnesses — a teenager and a 60-year-old — walking around 65ft from the family home. It was the last time he would be seen alive.
With blond hair and brown eyes, the outgoing boy was said to be “always chasing butterflies”.
Perhaps he had gone in search of the insects that sweltering evening.
Soon the Vedovinis noticed his disappearance and began frantically searching Haut-Vernet, which has just 30 houses. Their desperate cries for little Emile went unanswered.
At 6.12pm, they called the police. Soon a helicopter was searching overhead, while cops on the ground with three sniffer dogs combed the village.
Over the next few days, hundreds would join the search covering a 3.1-mile radius, which easily took in the spot where Emile’s remains were eventually found. Saint-Hubert dogs, which have a powerful sense of smell, were brought in to track Emile.
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‘Pain and sorrow’
Gendarmerie General Jacques-Charles Fombonne said: “They spotted his trace in two places, within a radius of 20m around the house, then nothing more. It may mean that the child got into a vehicle.”
Mum Marie’s imploring voice was played from loudspeakers attached to a helicopter while drones fitted with infrared thermal-imaging equipment scoured the countryside.
But Emile was gone. Prosecutors opened a criminal inquiry.
Trolls and conspiracy theorists suggested satanic sacrifice and organ trafficking could be motives for his disappearance. And then came a shocking revelation.
It emerged Emile’s parents had an extreme right-wing background.
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In 2021, both stood as local election candidates for the Reconquest party, led by convicted racist and Islamophobe Éric Zemmour.
Their slogans at the time identified them as “friends of Éric Zemmour”, who wanted to “clean out the system”.
And in 2018, Colomban — then an activist linked to the neofascist Bastion Social and far right Action Francaise — was arrested for an alleged “attack on foreigners”.
Judges freed him after he claimed he was intervening when a young Muslim couple were set upon.
Next, grandfather Philippe’s background fell under the spotlight. In the 1990s, he became a monk — known as Brother Philippe — and began working at a Catholic school for troubled youngsters in Riaumont, northern France.
In 2014, former students accused staff of physical abuse and rape.
While never a defendant in the case, Philippe, 58, was said to be an “assisted witness” in the inquiry.
He denies any wrongdoing. As part of the probe into Emile’s disappearance, his parents’ home in La Bouilladisse was searched in July.
Philippe and Anne’s homes nearby, and in the Alps, were also raided.
As the months rolled by, hopes that Emile might be found alive began to dwindle.
Then, on March 28, police reconstructed the day he disappeared in Haut-Vernet, asking 17 people to recreate their movements on the day he disappeared in a bid to jog memories.
Sombre Colomban and Marie were later seen driving away from the village.
Incredibly, two days later, Emile’s skull and teeth were found beside a woodland path.
Tests revealed the head had never been buried and a prosecutor said “small fractures” and “bite marks” on the skull could have been caused by wild animals.
Emile’s T-shirt, pants and shoes were scattered some 500ft away.
Village Mayor François Balique told The Sun the location was “overgrown” and “narrow with steep drops on both sides”.
Earlier, he had said: “The gendarmes couldn’t have missed him with the dogs.”
We cannot say whether Emile’s body was already in the searched area
Prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon
Now locals are speculating about what happened.
Gilles Thezan said: “I say the little one died and someone went to hide him there later.”
Prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon was unable to dismiss the theory, admitting: “We cannot say whether Emile’s body was already in the searched area.”
Haut-Vernet remains cordoned off as police conduct more fingertip searches, monitored by dozens of journalist from all over the world.
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Told on Easter Sunday their son’s remains had been found, Colomban and Marie issued a statement telling of their “pain and sorrow”.
At least now Emile will have a decent burial, away from this dark French valley that has witnessed so much suffering.
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