Émile Soleil went missing from his grandparents house on July 8 (Picture: Rex Shutterstock)
The investigation into a toddler who vanished in a village in the French Alps is continuing, amid chilling theories about what could have happened to him.
Émile Soleil, 2, went missing on July 8, sparking a huge search which involved hundreds of gendarmes, police and volunteers.
A huge search involving hundreds of gendarmes, police and volunteers was launched but then called off on July 14.
Police are now looking into a number of different theories, including the possibility of Émile being murdered, kidnapped or was in an accident involving farm machinery.
Meanwhile access to the village itself has been restricted to all but residents until the end of July.
As police try and piece together what might have happened, where is Le Vernet, and where was Émile last seen?
Where did Émile go missing?
Émile 2, went missing from his grandparents’ house in Le Vernet, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.
The commune, which has a population of around 150 people, is located in the south-west of the country, around 60km from the city of Toulouse and close to the borders with Spain and Andorra.
It is over 700km away from the French capital, Paris.
it’s not the first time Le Vernet, which has a population of roughly 150, has been at the heart of tragedy.
The toddler’s disappearance sparked a huge local search (Picture:Metro.co.uk/Google Maps/Getty)
Local resident Jeanette Grosos, who at the time was the owner of the local Café du Moulin, was murdered by a customer in 2008 – while in 2015 Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 crashed into the Alps after co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 28, brought down the Airbus intentionally in a suicide plan.
The flight was travelling from Barcelona Airport to Dusseldorf in Germany, with 150 people onboard, all of whom were killed instantly after Lubitz altered the flight monitoring system to send the aircraft into descent, crashing the plane into a mountain at 430mph.
Where was Émile last seen?
Émilewas last seen playing outside his grandparents’ home before his disappearance.
The boy’s parents – who have not been named – were at their home near Marseille, 200 miles away, for the summer holidays.
The land and air search for him was called off on July 14, the day after blood was found on the front of a car and sent for scientific analysis.
However, nothing is known to have come of this yet, with an investigating source saying at the time: ‘We don’t even know if it is human blood.’
The search was called off on July 14 (Picture: Rex Shutterstock)
Initially, police believed Émile may have walked away from his grandparents’ house while the family was getting ready to go out.
The toddler was a good walker for his age and ‘always chasing butterflies’ so ‘could have got a long way away, before hiding somewhere for a nap’, an emergency services source previously said.
Two people reportedly saw the little boy leaving the house but then lost ‘trace of him’, said local prosecutor Remy Avon.
MORE : Police share update on mystery of 2-year-old ‘butterfly’ boy missing in France
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His disappearance is still being investigated.
