In total, 17 people were summoned by the courts to reconstruct the moment when Émile, two and a half years old, was seen for the last time in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet, on July 8. To ensure that this new act of investigation takes place peacefully, access to the village has been blocked since 8 a.m. Wednesday and will remain so until 8 a.m. Friday. “The objective of the scenario is to retrace chronologically the evening of July 8 and to be able to confirm or deny the elements collected by the investigators,” explained Pierre Coursières, second in command of the gendarmerie group. des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, specifying that “around a hundred gendarmes” are mobilized “in the area”.
The “situation”, which is not strictly speaking a classic reconstruction, no serious offense having been noted in this case, is focused in particular on the last minutes during which the little boy was seen, on July 8 around 5:15 p.m., in the only street of this tiny town of 25 inhabitants. Émile had just arrived for the summer holidays at his maternal grandparents' second home and two neighbors claim to have seen him in the street, but with conflicting accounts. His parents, living in La Bouilladisse, in Bouches-du-Rhône, were not present that day.
Read also Disappearance of Émile: in Haut-Vernet, 17 witnesses for a “situation” which could be decisive
On Thursday, investigators summoned Emile's family, neighbors and other visual witnesses. They will be supervised by 20 investigators from the Marseille research section, the criminal investigations unit of the department's gendarmerie and, again, a team of drone pilots for "image capture for the benefit of investigators", specified the gendarmerie. First opened for a worrying disappearance in Digne-les-Bains, the investigation was quickly entrusted to two investigating judges from Aix-en-Provence then reclassified as criminal grounds for “kidnapping” and “sequestration”. Accident, fall, kidnapping? No leads were left out. In November, on the eve of Émile's third birthday, his parents broadcast a vibrant appeal via the weekly Famille Chrétienne. “Understand our distress, tell us where Émile is,” asked the message spoken by the child’s mother.