Missing French toddler: Investigators believe it is possible Émile died in a tractor accident

Where is 2 1/2-year-old Émile? That's the question that kept the country on tenterhooks all summer, and remains unanswered to this day. And yet, the investigators have explored numerous leads.A slab was destroyed, a body of water searched by divers, dogs were mobilized, drones...

The authorities also focused on tapping the telephone lines of the Haut-Vernet residents, as well as analyzing their numerous interviews. To no avail: 101 days later, the boy is still missing. In an interview with Femme Actuelle, François Daoust, former director of the Gendarmerie Nationale's criminal research institute, reviewed the various hypotheses on the table.

Émile killed in a farming accident?

'Why not an agricultural accident,' he says. Indeed, investigators are wondering whether Émile might have been accidentally swept away by a combine harvester, for example, and got stuck in a haystack. In which case, it would have been difficult to find him.

The child would have to have metal buttons on his bodysuit. That way, metal detectors could track him down. When you see the bales of hay rolls, if he's in the middle... If he's on the edge, it might work, otherwise it won't! (...) A metal detector can eliminate preconceived ideas, but it's not a scientific certainty.

Read more:Missing French toddler: One of Émile's neighbours' targeted by inhabitants 'I'm looked down on'

Kidnapping is still on the table

In the gradation, it's the lost child who falls into a hole, the accident - whether domestic or caused by an outsider who sees the deceased child and takes him away in his trunk 80 kilometers away - and the kidnapping of opportunity by someone in need of children.

While the search is now underway in the laboratory, it should resume in the field by late autumn, for one simple reason. The change of season should give investigators another chance to find the little boy. With the winter transformation of the landscape, new elements could come to light, whereas they were hidden by the greenery of summer.

Read more:Missing French Toddler: Neighbours shocked by Émile's parents' reaction to his disappearance

This article has been translated from Oh!MyMag FR.

Source used:

Femme Actuelle