Transported corpse, « facial trauma », intra -family track … what must be remembered from the conference of the prosecutor – Liberation

A press point for confirmations. In the morning, the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon spoke during a press conference to take stock of the latest advances in the still unexplained death of Emile Soleil. The 2-year-old boy had disappeared in July 2023 in the Haut-Vernet village (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). « Expertises introduce the probability of the intervention of a third party »announced this Thursday, March 27, the magistrate. A few hours earlier, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, The police custody of maternal grandparents, an uncle and one of the aunts of Emile Soleil, had been lifted after 48 hours of hearing.

Accompanied by the commander of the Marseille research section Christophe Berthelin, the prosecutor began by taking stock of the investigations since the start of the current case for 20 months. « Each index, each digital trace, each report is the subject of meticulous investigation »said Christophe Berthelin. In total, the investigators dealt with 3,141 different reports, carried out 287 hearings of witnesses and ratified nearly 285 hectares within the framework of judicial research. 426,000 vehicles were also detected around the Haut-Vernet at the time of the child’s disappearance and 55 million communication data were processed. Finally, more than 60 expertise missions in fields including physics chemistry, child psychiatry, genetics, biology and forensic analysis have been carried out.

« The conclusions of these expertise now make it possible to consider that the clothes and bones found were transported and deposited shortly before their discovery »underlines Jean-Luc Blachon. According to him, they allow « To say that the child’s body has not been broken down into the clothes found in the forest » And « That he was not buried ». Finally, the analysts spotted the presence on the skull of the boy of « Anatomical stigma evocative of a violent facial trauma ». « You will therefore understand that expertise introduces the probability of the intervention of a third party in the disappearance and death of Emile Soleil »he concludes.

Since Tuesday morning, a possible family track seemed to be emerging. Shortly after 6 am, Philippe and Anne Vedovini, Parents of Marie, Emile’s mother, as well as two adult children of the couple had been arrested in their opulent mas of Bouilladisse, between Aix-en-Provence and Aubagne. Their home had also been searched. « The police custody and hearings of several witnesses in the past two days are part of an investigation phase where it became necessary to confront the people most affected by the disappearance »underlines the prosecutor. The magistrate specifies that « The need to prevent any consultation required the legal framework adopted by police custody ».

During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, the four people placed in police custody were released without any burden being held against them. According to Me Julien Pinelli, grandmother’s lawyer Anne Vedovini, her client « Wanted to participate in what could naturally be akin to an event, but she wanted to do so insofar as she estimated that it was her contribution also to this investigation which she awaits the answers today. » Investigators “Since yesterday had a lot of questions to ask us. We answered all of the questions ”, said Me Isabelle Colombani, the Grandfather’s lawyer Philippe Vedovini. “We are not on moods. We are on specific, factual elements ”, She said earlier on Wednesday.

After these interrogations, does the family track still hold? “Today, there is a phase that ends concerning this track. It doesn’t mean that it ends definitively. It may occur, during future investigations, additional elements ”replies Jean-Luc Blachon. New elements of the investigation, revealed by the Parisian Wednesday evening, insisted that the investigators were now convinced that Emile had been the victim of a homicide. They had then established a list of suspects in which the four guarded on police, interviewed for « voluntary homicide » and « concealment of corpse ». The chief of« Voluntary homicide does not definitively exclude the hypothesis that it can be an involuntary homicide »however, recalls the magistrate.

Concerning the revelation of a new testimony of a neighbor, who said, according to the Parisianthat he would have seen the grandfather pass Philippe Vedovini shortly after having seen the boy the famous July 8, 2023, “These are important elements in a file. But these are the elements of the judicial information, the secrecy of the investigation and the information continues to apply ». « At the end of these police custody and in the light of all the elements gathered, the charges were not sufficient to lead to any indictment in this file »concludes Jean-Luc Blachon.

Finally, according to information from Paris Match,, Police searched the home of Father Claude Gilliot, the priest who had baptized Emile, in Aix-en-Provence, suicide the day before the boy’s burial. Asked about this point, the prosecutor wanted to emphasize that for the time being there was « No link between a priest and this case ».

Update at 11:46 a.m. With the conference of the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor.