'Boy racer' teen infamous for tractor speeding 'questioned' over missing toddler

14 July 2023 , 13:57

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A gendarme closes access to the road that leads to Haut Vernet (Image: Durand Thibaut/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock)

Police investigating the mystifying disappearance of a toddler from a tiny French village have interviewed a local teen with a reputation as a "boy racer", according to reports.

The gendarmes - France's paramilitary police force - are understood to have questioned the boy several times after the alarm was raised when Émile went missing from Haut Vernet, population 25, last Saturday.

The young man, who hasn't been identified but is the son of a farming family, is said to be a car and vehicle fanatic who was involved in a collision two years ago.

Then last year he was driving an agricultural machine, which was overloaded with straw when that also crashed. He became known locally as someone who drove around the area excessively fast on his tractor.

Two-year-old Émile was in his grandparents' garden when he vanished last Saturday

The French gendarmes have also looked into a group of workers on a construction site nearby.

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But Digne-les-Bains prosecutor Rémy Avon said on Wednesday: "[The operations] have not made it possible at this stage to discover new elements".

It comes after the police revealed that one theory they were pursuing was that Émile died after being hit by a "car or tractor" before the killer disposed of his body. The line of enquiry was in response to the discovery of blood close to a car where the boy was last seen. Later tests concluded that it was animal blood.

An investigating source said at the time: “At the moment we don't even know if it's human blood. It might be a very old trace too, so everybody is being very cautious about the find.”

The search operation was brought to a halt yesterday due to the lack of physical evidence found during the enormous search, in which hundreds of locals teamed up with police, firefighters and other emergency outfits to look for the boy.

The search scoured 1,000 acres but without finding a scrap of evidence (Durand Thibaut/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock)

It was also reported that Émile's mum had shared a post on Facebook about the "devil", which some considered disturbing.

Two-year-old Émile was on holiday at his grandparents' home on Saturday when he vanished without a trace from the small village of Vernet, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.

Earlier this week, French police admitted to being clueless as to the youngster's location. They have said they're not working on the basis of one theory over another, adding that all potential situations are being explored.

Cops called off the search to focus on the intelligence they gathered (Durand Thibaut/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock)

But they have now decided to focus solely on the intelligence and reports gathered during the investigation opposed to extending the physical search.

This is likely due to the fact they have not found a shred of evidence in any of the 1,000 acres scoured since Saturday.

Cadaver dogs and helicopters carrying thermal imaging cameras have been similarly useless in finding the boy, leaving cops no option.

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In a statement given to the AFP news agency, Remy Avon, the prosecutor of Digne-les-Bains, said: "The judicial investigation into the causes of the disappearance will continue, in particular by analysing the considerable mass of information and elements collected over the past four days."

Ryan Fahey