Police have disclosed what might have happened in the devastating case of Émile Soleil, a two-year-old boy whose remains were found months after he vanished from his grandparents' village in the French Alps.

Soleil went missing in Haut-Vernet on July 8, 2023, a tiny mountain village near the Massif des Trois-Évêchés. He was last seen walking alone down the only street in the village, near his grandparents’ home.

“The family was getting ready to leave the house to go on an outing. He took advantage of this fleeting moment [of inattention] to leave,' local mayor Francois Balique said, per The Guardian. “His grandparents realised he was no longer there when they went to put him in the car.”

A massive search followed, spanning five days and involving police, soldiers, helicopters, and sniffer dogs. They scoured 97 hectares, 30 buildings, and 12 vehicles. Even Émile’s mother’s voice was blasted from a helicopter to try and draw him out. Still, no trace was found.

Authorities stopped the large-scale search on July 13 to review the growing volume of data, and hopes of finding the little boy alive began to fade, The Telegraph reported.

On what would have been his third birthday that November, his mother made a desperate public appeal. If her son was dead, she pleaded that she still wanted his body returned so it could be buried. That heartbreak would become a reality months later.

On March 30, 2024, a woman hiking near Haut-Vernet stumbled upon a human skull and handed it in to a nearby police station. Police confirmed the remains belonged to Émile the next day through DNA testing.

Mayor Balique reflected on the tragedy: “It will take a long time to recover from this disappearance and death," cited by BBC News. "Is that where he disappeared? Is that where he took his last breath, nobody knows. In any case, I have no idea, but the judicial inquiry will no doubt be able to find that out."

Émile’s parents also issued a heartbreaking statement, which read: “This heart-breaking news was feared, and the time has come for mourning, contemplation and prayer.”

On April 2, 2024, police returned to the area and found the toddler's t-shirt, pants, and shoes, but they were spread out, and discovered at some distance from the remains.

Jean-Luc Blachon, the prosecutor leading the investigation, said: “We cannot be sure Emile's body was already present in the search area,” adding that “every square metre” had been searched before, and noting that dense undergrowth and summer heat may have affected the dogs’ ability to locate him initially.

Investigators believe Émile's body was not left in the forest to decompose. At a March 27, 2024, press conference, Blachon explained: “Expert investigations are suggesting the probability of the involvement of a third party in the disappearance and death of Emile Soleil,” per ConnexionFrance.

He said that analysis of the "clothes and bones" found by the hiker show they "were transported and placed there shortly before their discovery." That’s led to suspicions of deliberate concealment.

"[The Investigations] allow us to consider the hypothesis that the body did not remain in the same place…during the decomposition process and that it was not buried," Blachon said.

Even more disturbingly, the boy’s face showed signs of “violent facial trauma,” further supporting the belief that someone else was involved in both his disappearance and death.

According to Daily Mail, investigators believe Émile's remains may have been stored in a “freezer" before being moved and found.

On March 25, 2025, Émile’s grandparents, Philippe and Anne Vedovini, along with two of their adult children, were detained by police, per Sky News.

The grandparents, both 59, were arrested on suspicion of voluntary homicide and concealment of a corpse. Neither of those arrested were Émile’s parents.

Two days later, the grandparents were released without charge. Their legal representatives described it as “a relief.”

The late boy's funeral was held at the Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine earlier this year and was attended by his parents, siblings, including a baby born after his disappearance, and hundreds of mourners from across France.

Featured image credit: Joos Mind / Getty

Jay Slater's father and brother have continued searching for the missing teenager with a new team after the official search was called off.

The 19-year-old from the UK was last seen on June 17, when he disappeared after attempting an 11-hour walk back to his accommodation in Tenerife.

Slater had spent the night in a remote Airbnb with two men he'd met earlier in the trip, having decided to stay out rather than go back to where he was staying with his friend Lucy Mae Law.

He'd left the accommodation early on Monday morning, and had spoken with Law on the phone, telling her he was thirsty and that his phone was critically low on battery.

Slater was not seen or heard from again afterward, and Law reported him missing less than an hour after their call.

Police on the island had spent two weeks searching ravines near where Slater's phone was last known to have been used, but called off the search after no leads were found.

However, his heartbroken family has vowed to continue searching for him, with the public having donated over £50,000 ($64,000) to aid their efforts.

Now, his dad and brother have returned to the location where his mobile phone lost signal along with a search team in order to try and find clues as to what happened to their loved one.

According to reports from the Daily Mail, the pair were joined by a team of seven local hikers and a dog, and spent over four hours searching the difficult terrain.

The group spread out across a long and treacherous path which leads down to the sea below Masca on Tenerife's north west coast as they combed the area, despite the 25 degrees celsius (77 Fahrenheit) temperatures in the area.

The group used whistles to communicate with one another as they combed the steep slopes in the Parque Rural de Teno.

It comes after Slater's family was told on Friday that they would be able to use their own search and rescue teams to look for the teen.

The family previously told Sky News they were waiting for authorities to allow them to use some of the donations they'd received for this purpose, with the Guardia Civil then confirming such teams could be brought in from elsewhere "without any problem" to aid the search effort.

The official search was called off on June 30 after almost two weeks, after no trace of Slater was found.

Slater's mother, Debbie Duncan, also shared her gratitude to those still searching for her son, with a post in the official Facebook group reading: "Debbie and family would like to thank the local hiking group who have worked tirelessly planning routes and searching for Jay they are extremely overwhelmed with the kindness of them all. Thank you."

Featured image credit: Instagram

A husband and wife who spent the past 24 years searching for their abducted son have been reunited with him this week.

Per Al Jazeera, Guo Gangtang's son Guo Xinzhen was abducted from his home in eastern Shandong province in China by human traffickers when he was just two years old way back in 1997.

Since then, Gangtang has been traveling up and down China, riding more than 300,000 combined miles on his motorcycle, in a desperate bid to find his missing boy.

Despite suffering numerous injuries in traffic accidents, and a number of other setbacks, such as begging for money, highway robbers, and periods of homelessness, Gantang's determination helped to gain him significant media attention.

In 2012, thanks to his ubiquitous social media presence, Gangtang helped set up a website that assists other Chinese families in looking for their missing children, and his story was even made into a movie starring Andy Lau back in 2015.

The Guardian reports that he finally met his son again on Tuesday, July 13, after identifying 27-year-old Xinzhen - who now works as a teacher - through DNA testing.

Per Al Jazeera, a video released by the state-run China News Service shows Gangtang sobbing into his hands after meeting Xinzhen, stating: "Now that the child has been found, everything can only be happy from now on."

He added that he would regard the couple who raised him in the interim as family members, and pledged to continue to help reunite other fractured families.

Meanwhile, state media reports that two suspects linked to the case have been arrested, while police have not released any information about the parents who raised Xinzhen.

China's infamous one-child state policy, which was mandated in a bid to curb the communist nation's booming population, inadvertently fuelled a spree of child abductions in the eighties and nineties.

This was motivated by a cultural precedent that meant that male babies were seen as more desirable than female babies, thus prompting the kidnapping of boys throughout the country.

Featured Image Credit: Jozef Polc / Alamy

A volunteer who flew to Tenerife to help search for Jay Slater fears he may have been close to discovering the missing teen on a number of occasions.

On July 15, nearly a month after Jay went missing, human remains were located just a 20-minute walk from the last known location where his phone had pinged.

In a statement to Sky News, police said: "The mountain rescue and intervention group of the Civil Guard has located the lifeless body of a young man in the Masca area after 29 days of constant search.

"Given the complexity of the case, the discovery has been possible thanks to the incessant and discreet search carried out by the Civil Guard during these 29 days, in which the natural space was preserved so that it would not be filled with curious onlookers."

During the search for Jay, who went missing on June 17, many volunteered their time including some who flew to the Canary Islands to offer their services.

Londoner Callum Fahim, who answered the family's pleas to join the search for the missing teenager in Tenerife, has opened up about his time looking for the 19-year-old.

Fahim combed the rocky ravines of the Spanish island alongside a search party just days after the 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer vanished outside a remote Airbnb in Masca.

Speaking to The Independent shortly after a Spanish court confirmed the body belonged to Slater through autopsy fingerprinting, Fahim expressed his devastation.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” Fahim said. “We searched that area on the first day right next to where he was found further down. It is very dangerous there and inaccessible really."

Fahim continued: "They had to get a helicopter to lift searchers out of there. We just assumed that specialists had been there - it just looked like another bit of shrub to us. I don’t know what is going through someone’s head to walk down there. There are unmade paths all over the area - some more dangerous than others.”

Fahim noted that the police initially seemed uninterested in the area.

“The police weren’t particularly interested in that area at that time. They would walk around looking side-to-side driving up the road but I was there climbing through all the cactuses. The police said they had searched the area with drones and all that. It doesn’t make sense.”

Reflecting on the tragic outcome, Fahim added: “I think we kind of expected that he wouldn’t be coming out alive. But just now, the question is what led him to be there? I am gutted we couldn’t find him sooner because there could have been a chance to save his life. I will always question myself - could I have done better?

"I do feel like I failed a little bit, no matter what people say. I imagine I’ve walked past him five or six times. I hope this means the whole family can get peace, including the people who tried their hardest to find him. I’m just gutted, really.”

Fahim had canceled his search efforts after a disagreement with the Slater family over his expenses while in Tenerife.

He shared: “His mum has been sitting there in hell for 29 days constantly. I wish I had given everyone closure. I just wish he could’ve been found in the first couple of days.”

Our thoughts remain with Jay's loved ones.

Featured image credit: Instagram