Toddler Émile Soleil disappeared in France in July 2023, before some of his remains were found nine months later
The grandparents of a 2-year-old boy who went missing in France in July 2023, before some of his remains were found nine months later, have been arrested on suspicion of murder, according to reports.
On Tuesday, March 25, Émile Soleil’s grandfather, Philippe Vedovini, and his wife Anne were among four people to be taken into custody in relation to the toddler’s death, per French outlet Le Parisien.
The couple were arrested on suspicion of “voluntary homicide,” according to French outlet Le Monde, citing a statement sent by local Aix-en-Provence chief prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon to the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Two other members of the family were also arrested, according to the publication. Prosecutors didn’t identify the others arrested, but Blachon reportedly said they were “adult children” of the boy’s grandparents. No charges are thought to have been filed.
Toddler Émile was last seen by two neighbors walking alone on a street in the commune of Le Vernet in the French Alps on July 8, 2023, per Le Monde.
The witnesses saw the boy at around 5:15 p.m. local time, Le Parisien reported. His grandparents then reported him missing to the police around an hour later. His skull was found by a hiker in a “difficult-to-access area” nine months later in March 2024, the outlet stated.
Some of the boy’s clothes that he’d been wearing on the day he vanished were then found around 500 feet away from where the skull and some teeth had been discovered, according to the BBC.
“These bones by themselves do not allow us to say what the cause of Émile’s death is,” Blachon previously told reporters, according to the outlet. “Between a fall, manslaughter or murder, no theory can be treated as more likely than another.”
On Tuesday, Le Parisien reported that the boy’s grandparents were arrested at their home in the commune of La Bouilladisse, which is around 19 miles from Marseille and in the Bouches-du-Rhône region. The outlet added that the home is around 124 miles from their second property in Le Haut-Vernet, where Émile had been staying with them at the time of his disappearance.
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The outlet stated that items including a horse trailer and the grandparents’ Peugeot Boxer were being seized amid the ongoing investigation.
The Vedovini couple’s lawyer, Isabelle Colombani, declined to comment when approached by the AFP, per Le Monde, insisting she’d “only just heard” about the update.
Blachon told reporters that forensic police were examining “several spots in the area,” the publication reported, stating that the arrests in the case were the result of fact-finding “over recent months.”
The arrests come after around 400 people attended a funeral for the toddler at the famed Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in southeastern France last month on Feb. 8. Émile was laid to rest in La Bouilladisse, where his parents — who weren’t at the grandparents’ home when the toddler disappeared — live, Le Monde stated.
Lawyer Colombani and France’s public prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for additional information.
