A 15-year-old teenager was wanted on Friday after two charred bodies bearing marks of gunshot wounds were discovered in his burnt home in northern Isère (near the French Alps), where he lived with his parents, in a murder investigation.
The family’s youngest son, born in 2008, “is still wanted,” said Grenoble prosecutor Éric Vaillant the day after the Gendarmerie broadcast a call for witnesses.
The Bourgoin-Jallieu public prosecutor’s office abandoned the investigation in favor of the Grenoble public prosecutor’s office.
Originally opened for “destruction by dangerous means resulting in death”, the murder investigation continues.
On Monday, two bodies, “probably those of a man and a woman,” were discovered in the rubble of a burned house in the village of Chateauvilain (Isère). Formal identification of the bodies is still ongoing.
They had gunshot wounds to the head and one of them to the chest, Bourgoin-Jallieu prosecutor Nathalie Hermitte said in a press release on Friday morning before dropping the charges.
The investigation quickly focused on finding the still missing family member. The family consisted of four people: in addition to the missing teenager, the father, a 58-year-old engineer, the 52-year-old mother who worked from home, and the 17-year-old eldest son. who had left his home the day before to go to his place of study.
The latter is “safe today, as are his two adult half-sisters, who no longer live in the region,” according to the prosecution.
The vehicle the father usually drove to work, a Citroën Picasso, was found in the Drôme, the Grenoble public prosecutor’s office confirmed, with the young man having been filmed behind the wheel since his disappearance, according to the daily Le Dauphiné Libéré.
According to the gendarmerie, the young man was “probably found in the north of Drôme or Isère” on Thursday.
According to the mayor of the town of around 800 residents, Daniel Gaude, the family had been living there for around fifteen years, had renovated an old farm and was “very well integrated”.
During his previous term as a local councilor, the father was part of his team responsible for the cafeteria daycare center. “It’s incomprehensible to me (…) I knew her well, I can only say good things about her,” he told AFP.