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Disappeared from the Luberon: the accidental thesis dismissed

2020-01-17T19:04:22.138Z


Julien and Gabriel, two childhood friends from Aude, disappeared in early December in Provence. The gendarmes try to unravel


"Hello sir, can you tell me if you've seen these two people and this car before?" ". Warmly covered and dressed in a fluorescent vest, a policeman hands two portraits to the door of a motorist. On the A4 sheet of the soldier, the faces of Julien Boumlil and Gabriel Ferchal, two young people from Malves-en-Minervois, near Carcassonne (Aude), who have not given any sign of life since their passage on December 3 at Revest-du-Bion, a peaceful village in the heights of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.

As the temperature approaches the usual 2 ° C of this month of January and the day dies out, the soldiers are posted at the exit of this borough whose old stones do not shelter more than 600 souls in the heart of the plateau Albion. They hope to glean the testimonies of residents who have come across Julien and Gabriel, 25 and 26 years old, the day of their disappearance.

Julien Boumlil and Gabriel Ferchal have not given any sign of life since December 3. / DR

If in summer, this town located at the crossroads of Vaucluse and Drôme, sees its share of tourists attracted by the scent of lavender fields that line the feet of Mont Ventoux, in recent times, it's more like a gendarmes' ballet that the locals see pass. "It never happens a story like this in Revest-du-Bion", we comment from the pétanque ground in the center of the town.

For several weeks, the bowlers and regulars of the Café du Midi have seen soldiers march on foot knocking on doors, or in a helicopter scanning the village and its surroundings. The small pond on the outskirts of the city was notably inspected by divers. Without finding any trace, neither of the boys, nor of Julien's car, a metallic gray Volkswagen Passat.

Siblings at the heart of the investigation

But it is below the village, on a slightly withdrawn plot that is reached by a stone path, that the judicial information opened for "kidnapping and forcible confinement without voluntary release" was particularly focused. There, on a plot of land surrounded by pine trees, live Vincent and Frédéric M., two brothers aged around thirty. These siblings, described by the investigators as "itinerant nurses who have settled down a bit in Revest", live in this old house with their mother.

And it was with Vincent, whom he met a few years ago in a “chug”, these often wild techno evenings, organized in the countryside or in disused places, that Julien and Gabriel had an appointment for a “truck repair”. "He told me he was going to do mechanics. Besides, his partner Maëva realized that he had brought his two tool boxes, "recalls Nicole Ferchal, Gabriel's grandmother. The latter "told me he was going to win 1000, 1500 euros", continues the 78-year-old lady.

Julien and Gabriel would have stayed a few hours on this ground, where are heaped up carcasses recovered from cars, vans, scrap metal. Then, the two boys are said to have left shortly before 10 p.m. that evening, to find a friend in Pertuis, a town in the north of Aix-en-Provence, which can be reached in just over an hour. by car from Revest. Except that the two childhood friends never arrived.

"The gendarmes told my mother that we must have done something stupid"

Frédéric, the eldest of the M. siblings, tells us that he was overwhelmed when he saw the gendarmes disembark at his home. "They came three times, they searched the house, the land, lifted branches, dug, I even lent them picks", tells us this man with chiseled features over his slightly rusted metal gate. Behind him, two dogs to watch out for as indicated by a sign at the entrance to the field. And her mother, an elderly lady with oxygen pipes in her nostrils, who is eyeing our exchange through the French window on the ground floor.

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"The gendarmes told my mother that we must have done some bullshit, it sawed my legs, gets carried away Frédéric. All this is my brother's business, I don't take care of it ”. To date, no police custody has taken place in this case. For the moment, Vincent is not at Revest, Frédéric assures us: “He left in a party, I don't know where. His thing is music, chick. Contacted, the sibling's cadet, who has already been heard by the gendarmes, has not yet followed up.

The gendarmes were also interested in Rognes, a town in Bouches-du-Rhône located 30 minutes west of Pertuis. At 00.46 the night of their disappearance, more than 3 hours after their supposed departure from Revest, the telephone of one of the two disappeared bounded at the level of this Provençal village. “We don't know what they went to do there. Did they disappear there, what were their routes? "Wonders a source close to the investigation who assures us: this double disappearance is" a priority issue, we are working hard ".

"In early January, they came and helicopters turned," confirms Jean-François Corno, mayor of the town. The soldiers particularly insisted on the Saint-Christophe basin, a vast artificial lake of 20 ha.

"Operational research by vehicle, on foot and by helicopter has been done, they have yielded nothing," notes a source close to the investigation carried out by a cell from the Marseille research section and gendarmes from the Alpes-de -High-Provence. But "until proven otherwise, adds this source, the accidental thesis is rejected". Regarding the bank cards of the two disappeared, no movement was identified on their accounts. Difficult therefore for the moment to retrace the course of the two boys to the "alternative way of life".

Source: leparis

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