Dozens of searches were carried out by the gendarmes in Le Vernet, this Tuesday, November 7, as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Émile which dates back to last July.
New major operation in Vernet in the case of the disappearance of little Émile. The police had not mobilized as much since the first weeks of searching to find the two-year-old boy. This Tuesday, November 7, at least ten houses were searched in the commune of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, in total around thirty “targets” were marked and searched by the fifty to one hundred gendarmes deployed according to information from the Parisian and of BFMTV.
The various houses or areas searched were located within a radius of several kilometers around Le Vernet thanks to digital and telephone investigations and geolocation data recovered since the start of the investigation. Among the targeted locations: homes and vehicles whose owners were present near Vernet on the day of the disappearance, some located only a few meters from the family home of the mother of the missing boy, others further away in areas mountainous areas more difficult to access.
Do investigators have a lead?
“These are checks on individuals targeted by the investigation. There is nothing to confirm at this stage that the perpetrator is among them, but the searches may perhaps make it possible to identify a suspect.” , explained a source close to the investigations to Parisian. If an operation is carried out, investigators have not identified a suspect. It is moreover in the hope of finding or clarifying a lead that the searches take place.
Inside the searched places, the gendarmes exploit everything they can find, particularly on the digital side with seizures of computers, telephones or other media. “The objective was digital. We had the reinforcement of COMCyberGEND, soldiers specialized in the processing of computer data,” said a member of the gendarmerie mobilized on site at BFM DICI. Once the operation is completed, and if no significant element is found in the meantime, the investigators will be able to process all the elements, new or not, collected at Vernet.
Émile, aged two, disappeared on July 8, 2023 in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet while staying with his grandparents. The little boy escaped the vigilance of his family while playing in the garden and vanished near the home located in a steep area.