EMILE, KILLED BUT BY WHOM ? | Enquêtes criminelles | W9

20 months after the disappearance of little Emile in Haut Vernet, the case has taken a new twist. The grandparents, as well as an aunt and uncle of the 2 1/2-year-old boy, were taken into custody on Tuesday.

Investigators are now convinced that Emile was murdered. Forensic examinations of the boy’s bones and clothing revealed that his body had been moved and that he had received a blow to the skull. Human intervention was therefore no longer in doubt. But who could have attacked little Emile?

The grandparents, the last people to see him alive, were inevitably singled out. Their own daughter began to doubt their guilt, and tensions flared within the once close-knit clan. And although they emerged free from police custody, the intra-family link does not seem to have been definitively ruled out.

This is all the more true as another event is casting a shadow over the case: the suicide of the priest who baptized little Emile. The man who had been at odds with Philippe Vedovini, the grandfather, for months, apparently took his own life on March 15. Was it just a coincidence?

Here’s a look at the latest revelations in this mysterious case, which has been stirring passions for almost 2 years.