Found Deceased France - Émile S., 2, outside grandparent’s house, Le Vernet, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, 8 July 2023

[FromGermany1]

Le lavoir de Vernet les Bains - Mamie Lau

Une curiosité de la ville, son lavoir; le seul en Europe a être alimenté en eau chaude et thermale. l'office de tourisme nous avait dit qu'il était ouvert et se visitait, mais quand nous sommes arrivés il était ..... fermé!! Je n'ai pu le voir et faire...

plumedesmers.canalblog.com

I think, this is something about the wash house, we are speaking of. Where it is located within the village, Idk.

 

[Andreee]

Maybe they mean the fountain?
Looking at the maps there's a bar and church a bit down the hill but that's about it apart from the houses at the bottom.

That makes sense!

 

[Hexe]

Le lavoir de Vernet les Bains - Mamie Lau

Une curiosité de la ville, son lavoir; le seul en Europe a être alimenté en eau chaude et thermale. l'office de tourisme nous avait dit qu'il était ouvert et se visitait, mais quand nous sommes arrivés il était ..... fermé!! Je n'ai pu le voir et faire...

plumedesmers.canalblog.com

I think, this is something about the wash house, we are speaking of. Where it is located within the village, Idk.

No. It's about a wash house in totally different village, that is on southwestern France, in Pyrenees, near the Spanish border.

 

[Hexe]

That makes sense!

No, it doesn't. Le lavoir is a laundry, not a fountain and the "fountain" there is just a spring, where the water trickles down from a pipe, there are pictures of it on Google Maps. Would be hard to wash anything there.

 

[FromGermany1]

No. It's about a wash house in totally different village, that is on southwestern France, in Pyrenees, near the Spanish border.

Oh, okay. I googled "Le Vernet" plus "lavoir".

 

[renarde]

Disparition d’Émile : ces hypothèses sur lesquelles planchent les gendarmes après dix semaines de recherches

L’enquête ouverte à la suite de la disparition de l’enfant de 2 ans et demi, le 8 juillet dans les Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, n’a toujours pas

www.leparisien.fr

 

[JLZ]

What is the wash house? The witness Marc had said somewhere that the little boy was heading for there.

From the various images I think la fontaine-lavoir is a trough or set of troughs . . . looking something like a sarcophagus. Did it contain water at the time of Emile's disappearance? I'd be thinking he might have climbed up or in, accidentally drowned and been hidden.

 

[crhedBngr]

I believe la fontaine-lavoir is a garden.
Google Earth

JMVHO.

 

[Cinister09]

Whacked that image through the google image translate thing.

I didn't realise the house where the excavations took place was so far away from the grandparents house.

This is listing the property behind the fountain as the wash-house, however google maps says it is a cafe.

This is an image of the foutain and the building that is listed as a wash-house.
This also gives you an idea of how far the grandparents house is from the foutain.

 

[Hexe]

Whacked that image through the google image translate thing.

I didn't realise the house where the excavations took place was so far away from the grandparents house.

This is listing the property behind the fountain as the wash-house, however google maps says it is a cafe.

View attachment 447576

This is an image of the foutain and the building that is listed as a wash-house.
This also gives you an idea of how far the grandparents house is from the foutain.

View attachment 447585

Because it probably was a wash house in good ole days before running water, canalisation and laundry machines in every house. And nie the building got repurposed as a cafe.

 

[Cinister09]

Oh yeah I'm not saying it wasn't originally a wash-house. I'm just saying it's listed as a cafe now...

 

[JLZ]

Because it probably was a wash house in good ole days before running water, canalisation and laundry machines in every house. And nie the building got repurposed as a cafe.

But there is still a fount there, of sorts. You can see water pouring from the trough. The map here is pointing to a structure in front of the garden, not to the building.

Disparition d’Emile : que s’est-il passé devant le lavoir du Haut-Vernet où les chiens ont perdu sa trace ?

Le lavoir de la rue principale du Haut-Vernet suscite bien des interrogations, près de 9 mois après la disparition du petit Émile dans ce hameau des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. C’est là que sa trace s’était perdue avant...

www.ladepeche.fr

Edit: have a look at what other fontaines-lavoir (sorry I don't know the correct plural) are like. They are all stone or concrete-ish troughs and out-of-doors. Not houses.

 

[JLZ]

I'm a little troubled by the . . . inconsistency, that the grandparents were loading the car and the grandfather was also chopping wood.

 

[FromGermany1]

I'm a little troubled by the . . . inconsistency, that the grandparents were loading the car and the grandfather was also chopping wood.

That doesn't fit together, was also my thought, when I read it.

 

[Dotta]

"A lavoir is a public wash house or communal washing place found in many French villages often with a fountain.

These places can be generously decorated with flowers and are usually well maintained by locals and councils. They vary from the very simple to the quite grand. Many were built in the 19th century when bringing water to a village was considered a priority for village inhabitants and farmers. Built around natural water sources like springs or rivers and often with roofs for shelter, they were the focal point of village life."

https://www.afrenchcollection.com/french-lavoir/

 

[Cinister09]

I'm a little troubled by the . . . inconsistency, that the grandparents were loading the car and the grandfather was also chopping wood.

It's possible he was doing both in the space of time he had. He could potentially have been chopping the wood into posts to be loaded into the car for the fence repair.

From the info around the net, articles, video reports etc, I put this timeline together as a rough one... including some of the places I've gotten the info.

Sorry for the long post!

Nap 12:00 - 3:00 (The nap time has been mentioned as 3pm at 1:28 onwards in this video by Touche pas à mon poste ! on YouTube and a 3-hour nap seems more realistic than a 5-hour nap for a toddler IMO)

"The Alpes-Dau-Haut- de- Provence. Where? In the Alpes d'Hauteprovence. The Alpes de Haute Provence. It's a family house. There were six aunts and uncles there that day. Émile had arrived the day before. In the morning, he had played with his little cousins. They had built a wooden hut about a hundred metres from the house. And he was fascinated by this wooden hut. It was lunchtime and he didn't want to go home because he wanted to stay in the tree house. So we made him go home. He had a nap. Around 3pm, he woke up. He wanted to go back to the cabin. Except that his grandfather, Philippe, had decided something else and they're a very close-knit family. They do everything together. When they go hiking, everyone joins in. When they go to the pool, everyone goes to the pool. In short, that's how things work at home. So there was no question of little Émile going to the cabin. And by the time they got organised, I think that afternoon they had planned to build a fence for the horses, so everyone had to take part."

Awake and playing with family before they were due to go out 3:00 - 4:30 (My own assumption as Émile would be fresh from a nap and full of energy, so I expect him to be up and playing for a bit)

Outside ready to go with Philippe as he cuts wood or loads the car - 4:30 - 4:45 (both cutting wood and loading the car have been stated so far)

Seen by witness going down to the wash house - 4:45 (This witness from my understanding is not the teenager or the older man without his dog)

"While he was outside, in front of his stairs, he explained that he “ saw the little one going down to the wash house ” around 4:45 p.m. “I was doing work at my house ,” he said. According to him, Émile was not alone at that time. “ The grandfather was cutting wood about ten meters from the child ,” he assured. The witness was therefore not worried about the little boy since his grandfather was near him."

"That day, I saw the little one going down to the wash house. I was doing work at my house and at that time, I was outside in front of my stairs", a- he declared to our colleagues at BFM DICI.
To commentators who criticize these witnesses for not having informed the police, the young man responds: "Frankly, these criticisms are nonsense. These are people who live in Paris, who do not know the life of a hamlet, who say that." According to him, it was a little after 4:45 p.m. when he saw the child.
The witness heard by investigators
For this resident of Vernet, there was nothing to worry about: “The grandfather was cutting wood about ten meters from the child,” he confided to our colleagues. The young man then returned inside to continue his work. “And when I poked my head out of the window a few minutes later, I saw the frantic family looking for the little one and who quickly called the police.”

Family notice he is missing and search for him - 5:15 - 6:00 (The witness said a few minutes and the initial missing poster lists 5:15 as the time)
“At 5:15 p.m. this Saturday, young Émile, two and a half years old, disappeared in Haut-Vernet, in the commune of Vernet"
I also want to add that there is another article which says Émile wasn't missing until 6pm, however this could be a miss-type on their part and it was from very early on so they may not have known themselves.

• "Emile, two and a half years old, was playing in the garden of his grandparents' house, in Vernet, a village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence , when he disappeared on Saturday around 6 p.m., in a steep area."

Seen by witness going downhill and uphill - 5:15 (The older man without his dog and the teenager)

Police are called - 6:00 - 6:12 (This is the time I have seen quoted a couple of times in articles and it is also mentioned in the above video at approx 2:46 onwards)

From the video: "And at a certain point, I think around 5.00 p.m., just as they were about to leave, they noticed that Emile wasn't there. The grandfather went out. It's a very small village, there are 17 houses, so it's And what's more, it's a dead end. In other words, it's really... We're in a vacuum. The grandfather came out and met two witnesses who had seen Émile a few minutes earlier. A few minutes earlier, we don't know the exact time. The problem is that these two witnesses, one 16 years old, the other a pensioner, don't say the same thing. In terms of the direction the child was travelling, the pensioner says he was going downhill and the 16-year-old says he was going uphill. In short, Émile could not be found and at 6.00 p.m., the grandfather raised the alarm, called the gendarmerie and very quickly a large force arrived on the scene."

Article: "What time was it ? Probably between 5:15 p.m. and 6:12 p.m., the precise time at which little Émile’s grandmother called the gendarmes of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence to report the disappearance of her grandson."

"It was around 6 p.m., Saturday July 8, when the disappearance of this toddler with wheat-blonde hair was reported by his grandparents to the gendarmerie. "

Police arrive - 6:40

The police arrived on site approximately “thirty or forty minutes” after the call, he estimates.

From 6:40 p.m." , according to the report from the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence prefecture, a major search for the child was implemented: dog teams, helicopters and drones equipped with thermal cameras, soldiers from the gendarmerie platoon high mountains, firefighters and volunteer residents comb the surrounding area until late at night. The next day, an investigation was opened and a call for witnesses launched.

Edit to add: this is MOO on the timeline!

 

[JLZ]

“ The grandfather was cutting wood about ten meters from the child ,” he assured.

This too. The grandparents' house is sixty to seventy metres from the 'fountain'. I don't get where he could have been chopping wood so close.

 

[kittythehare]

no new information but many new photos of the beautiful child

Disparition d'Émile : au Haut-Vernet, une nouvelle décision du maire lourde de sens après de nouvelles fouilles

Le maire du Haut-Vernet a pris une grande décision. Alors qu'il avait annoncé il y a quelques semaine son intention de suspendre l'accès à tous les visiteurs n'ayant pas de résidence principale ou secondaire dans le hameau, il vient de prolonger cet arrêté d'interdiction. L'affaire serait-elle sur l

www.purepeople.com

 

[JLZ]

no new information but many new photos of the beautiful child

Disparition d'Émile : au Haut-Vernet, une nouvelle décision du maire lourde de sens après de nouvelles fouilles

Le maire du Haut-Vernet a pris une grande décision. Alors qu'il avait annoncé il y a quelques semaine son intention de suspendre l'accès à tous les visiteurs n'ayant pas de résidence principale ou secondaire dans le hameau, il vient de prolonger cet arrêté d'interdiction. L'affaire serait-elle sur l

www.purepeople.com

Picture 12/12. Are they logs and timber in the hut in the centre? That is very close to the fountain, across the road.

 

[LaborDayRN]

I grew up in a place like this, doors were never unlocked, everybody just walked into each others' houses. We played in the village street or in the fields, it was easy and normal.

I'm very far behind but I can't imagine a two year old left unsupervised, alone to wonder wherever they want. It's a recipe for disaster imo.
Something as simple as a fall could be fatal if he hit his head. Someone should always be watching.