Breakthrough in French toddler death mystery as grandparents arrested

A lengthy investigation into the mysterious death in 2023 of a French toddler took a surprise turn on Tuesday when police arrested the boy's grandparents on suspicion of murder.

The death of Emile Soleil, a boy of two-and-a-half who went missing in a French Alpine village in July 2023, had remained unexplained even after some of his remains were discovered nine months later.

Prosecutors at the time said the cause of his death could have been "a fall, manslaughter or murder".

Emile had been staying at the summer home of his maternal grandparents in the tiny hamlet of Le Haut-Vernet when he vanished.

Two neighbours last saw him walking alone on a street in Le Vernet, 1,200 metres (4,000 feet) up in the French Alps, in the late afternoon of July 8, 2023.

Emile's mother and father were absent on the day he disappeared.

Nine months later, a walker discovered his skull and teeth 1.7 kilometres (1.1 miles) from the village.

Police later found more bones and items of the boy's clothing.

Within hours of police being alerted to Emile's disappearance, hundreds of people joined the police and military to search for the toddler over an area of nearly 100 hectares (250 acres).

Thirty houses in the area were searched and residents questioned.

'We need to know'

Some media had focused on the role of the boy's grandfather, Philippe Vedovini.

He had been questioned in the 1990s over alleged violence and sexual assault at a private school but police had initially considered his possible involvement in Emile's death as only one of many hypotheses.

In a sharp turn of events, Vedovini and his wife were arrested on Tuesday morning on suspicion of "voluntary homicide", Aix-en-Provence chief prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon said in a statement sent to AFP.

Contacted by AFP, the couple's lawyer, Isabelle Colombani, said she had no comment, having "only just heard" about the development.

Two other members of the family were also arrested, prosecutors said.

Their identity was not revealed but Blachon said they were "adult children" of the Vedovinis.

Speculation that a development in the case was imminent resurfaced earlier this month when investigators returned to the village.

Tuesday's arrests were the result of fact-finding "over recent months", the prosecutor told reporters.

He said forensic police were examining "several spots in the area".

A traditional Catholic funeral mass for the toddler was held in February this year in the presence of several hundred mourners.

Emile's grandparents and parents are devout Catholics.

Within hours of the ceremony, the grandparents published a statement saying "the period of silence must yield to the period of truth", adding: "We need to understand. We need to know."

Following their arrest on Tuesday, police were searching their main home in the Provence village of La Bouilladisse, the prosecutor said.