Little Emile's death 'may never be solved': Detectives fear mystery of two-year-old whose remains were found in French Alpine village eight months after he vanished 'could remain an enigma'

Experts fear the mystery around the tragic death of two-year-old Émile may never be solved after his remains were discovered eight months after his disappearance from the family's Alpine home.

'I fear that whatever we do in this case, it will remain an enigma,' former top public prosecutor Jacques Dallest admitted, with investigators no closer to working out how the child's bones and skull turned up near the house after thorough searches.

'I am not sure that even if we discover the rest of the body, we will have sufficient elements to allow us to determine the causes of death,' he added, as reported by The Times.

The remains of young Émile were found by walkers last Saturday 'on a path between the Church and Chapel' of the quiet Alpine village of Le Vernet in southeastern France, according to mayor François Balique.

The site, barely a kilometre from where Émile disappeared while staying with his grandfather in July, had already been scoured by gendarmes with a 'tooth comb', the mayor told Le Figaro.

With little else to go on, investigators are now questioning whether the bones could have been moved by a person or animal - as authorities ask how the remains were not found sooner.

A rambler discovered the remains on March 30, some eight months after Emile apparently wandered off from the family home on July 8 last year.

Authorities were able to identify the bones belonged to Emile - but were frustrated they had been moved.

Jean-Luc Blachon, the prosecutor leading the case, said the walker was not a suspect, suggesting she only 'wanted to do the right thing' in bringing the remains to the police and leading them back to the spot.

But Blachon also admitted police were no closer to solving the mystery.

'Between the child falling, the manslaughter and the murder, we still cannot favour one hypothesis over another,' he told a news conference last week. 

Speaking on Monday, mayor Balique said he could not understand why the remains hadn't been found sooner.

'There are people who regularly use the path nearby. I used it last week. The volunteer searchers have been there, I'm sure.

'I was there during the beatings [on the ground by those searching for Émile] and the gendarmes couldn't have missed him with the dogs.

'There was even a logging there in the Autumn. The wood cutters didn't see anything either. It's incomprehensible.'

'I can't help but believe that an adult is involved in this matter. Émile would never have gone alone to where he was found,' he added.

Gilles Thézan, a resident of Haut-Vernet, told Le Parisien: 'There's a trick going on.

'The body was found only one or two kilometers from Haut-Vernet, in a place which had already been searched and re-searched, notably with dogs.

'Everything was raked from top to bottom. There's no way anyone wouldn't have seen it before.'

Marie-Laure Pezant, a spokeswoman for the gendarmerie, said the bones may have been placed there by a person or animal, or moved by shifting weather patterns. 

But a source close to the investigation insisted 'it's unlikely animals would bring human remains back into the village where someone went missing'.

Until last week, there had been no trace of the toddler since he went missing, with investigators refusing to rule out any theory for the tragedy, including abduction and murder.

Émile was officially in the care of his grandfather, Philippe Vedovini, on the day of his disappearance, as his parents took a break. 

A witness saw Mr Vedovini, a physiotherapist-osteopath, cutting wood outside his house around the time Émile is thought to have wandered off.

Volunteers joined authorities last July to help scour the area in the tiny hamlet, population 25, but unturned no clues.

Last Thursday, investigators returned to the hamlet to reconstruct the last sighting with 17 people including members of the family.