Spiritual retreat, kidnapping, voluntary disappearance and even esotericism ... Many hypotheses surrounded the disappearance of Aurélie Vaquier, on January 28 in Bédarieux, in the Hérault.
The answer to this mystery is probably much less romantic and just plain tragic.
The 39-year-old young woman, passionate about writing, organic products and costume jewelry, would in fact never have left her home.
As proof, the body which was unearthed this Wednesday, April 7 in the house that the disappeared shared with her companion.
It is very "
probable
" that it is that of Aurélie Vaquier, as indicated by the prosecutor of Béziers during a press conference.
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The case began at the end of last January, in Bédarieux, a small town in the Hérault hinterland.
On January 28, the young woman vanishes into nature, abandoning her car and especially her cat to which she is very attached.
The thirty-something takes only a few things and her cell phone with her.
She also sends a last message to her partner, Samire, in which she informs him of her departure and asks him not to alert some of her relatives to avoid worrying them.
A message riddled with spelling errors that will not fail to question those around him, all of them knowing Aurélie's appetite for writing.
“In the SMS there were a lot of spelling mistakes.
My sister was very fond of that.
She never did.
I question this message because, for me, it does not come from my sister, ”
his brother Jéremy told
Midi Libre
last March.
Many inconsistencies
As the days go by, the radio silence continues.
On February 15, Samire decides to warn Aurélie's family of her disappearance.
A week later, it is finally the gendarmes who are alerted.
Samire then explains that his companion would have informed him of his intention to go to isolate himself to write a book about his life.
If the young woman had already given herself to spiritual retreats in chapels, as her relatives explained to several media, this hypothesis does not seem to stick with her last life projects and in particular that of opening a very soon.
Before her disappearance Aurélie Vaquier also had a stand for a few weeks on the Bédarieux market.
Very respectful of the environment, it offered shampoos, bath salts, natural soaps and other organelles, as indicated by
Midi Libre
.
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Three weeks after Aurélie's "departure", an investigation for a disturbing disappearance was opened by the Béziers prosecutor's office and entrusted to the search brigade of the Béziers gendarmerie company, reinforced by the community of Bédarieux brigades.
At the same time, Jérémy Vaquier, the brother of the deceased, organizes several beatings as well as a solidarity march for his sister.
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New excavations were also to be undertaken this Sunday following a testimony from a hiker who thought he had seen him on the edge of a forest, according to
Midi Libre
.
Surprisingly, Samire was very little involved in the research of his companion.
He only participated in the first beat organized by Aurélie's brother.
"I am tired and upset,"
he explained to the regional daily.
10 full-time gendarmes
Finally, neither the searches by the gendarmes, nor those carried out by her family and friendly circle, make it possible to locate the missing person and to understand the circumstances of her disappearance.
Thus, on March 1, 2021, the Béziers prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation for “kidnapping and kidnapping”.
The investigation is then entrusted to the research section of Montpellier which sets up a working group with 10 gendarmes dedicated to full-time on this file under the authority of the investigating magistrate.
For more than a month, the investigations continued without any major progress being noticed.
For those close to the young woman, it is an endless wait that begins.
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After 10 weeks of mystery, the investigation finally takes a decisive turn.
Wednesday, April 7, in the morning, the gendarmes go to the home of the missing - in which her companion still resides -, accompanied by a search dog for missing persons as well as a "ground penetrating radar" allowing the soil survey and partition.
They end up bringing to light a body, hidden under a concrete slab, in the basement of the house.
The facts are immediately reclassified by the investigating magistrate as “murder” and no longer only as “kidnapping and sequestration”.
Aurélie Vaquier's companion was taken into custody at the end of the morning.
During a press conference held in the evening, the public prosecutor of Béziers Raphaël Balland explained that "it
is very probably the body of Aurélie Vaquier due to the presence of a very recognizable tattoo and of a piercing.
We do not yet know what this young woman died of
”, he added.
An autopsy and a scanner must be carried out this Thursday, with DNA samples to confirm the identity of the victim.