‘Emile’s murderer must have returned to dump missing toddler’s body’
Ravine where skull found was searched with dogs, villagers say
VILLAGERS in an Alpine hamlet where the remains of tragic tot Emile Soleil were found believe he was murdered – and the killer returned to dispose of his remains.
A rambler found the two-yearold’s skull and bones on Saturday in a ravine near his family’s French Alps holiday home where Emile went missing last July.
People in Vernet insist the extremely steep area had already been searched “with a toothcomb” in a hunt involving sniffer dogs.
Emile’s death follows a horrific plane crash and a cafe owner’s murder – and some people are now saying their village is cursed.
Raked
Francois Balique, the mayor of Haut-Vernet, near Grenoble, said: “I can’t help but believe that an adult is involved. Emile would never have gone alone to where he was found.”
Emile’s remains were found in the Auches Ravine, just over a mile from where he was last seen playing. Mr Balique said: “There are people who regularly use the path nearby.
“The volunteer searchers have been there, I’m sure, and the gendarmes couldn’t have missed him with the dogs.
“There was even logging there in the autumn. The wood cutters didn’t see anything either.”
Resident Gilles Thezan said: “Everything was raked from top to bottom. There’s no way anyone wouldn’t have seen [Emile’s body] before. I say that the little one died and that someone went to hide him there much later.” Police sealed off Vernet yesterday as they brought in drones and sniffer dogs in a bid to find more clues. Prosecutors in Aix-enProvence said Emile’s skull and bones were being tested to find the cause of his death. The toddler had been in the care of his grandfather, physiotherapist-osteopath Philippe Vedovini, 58, when he went missing. He was thought to have wandered off as Mr Vedovini was cutting wood.
It has emerged Mr Vedovini, who gave up training to be a monk to marry his wife Anne, had been investigated as an “assisted witness” in an active criminal inquiry into historic child abuse at a school where he worked in the early 1990s. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The Vedovinis brought up 10 children, including Emile’s mother, Marie, who is married to the child’s father, Colomban Soleil, 26.
The Soleils’ extreme-Right wing political background has also been probed by police.
Vernet villagers were horrified in 2008, when a customer murdered local cafe boss Jeannette Grosos.
And in 2015, the area was sealed off following the Germanwings Airbus A320 crash in which 150 people died. The plane was brought down deliberately by the co-pilot, who suffered suicidal tendencies.
One resident said yesterday: “Everybody is saying it – Vernet feels like a village of the damned.”