A body was found on Thursday April 4 near the nightclub where young Erwan disappeared on the night of February 11 to 12, 2024.

Erwan Blais, 18, was last seen on the night of February 11 to 12, 2024. While he was in a nightclub in Moncoutant, the young man disappeared without a trace. A body was discovered on Thursday April 4 in a river near the place where the teenager was last seen in Deux-Sèvres, according to the Niort prosecutor’s office in a press release, cited by BFMTV.

DNA analyzes and an autopsy are underway to determine whether this is the body of the 18-year-old young man. In a press release sent to Ouest France, Julien Wattebled, the public prosecutor of Niort indicates “that an investigation into the causes of death was opened after the discovery of a body in Moncoutant-sur-Sèvre”. “Shortly after 4:15 p.m. on April 4, 2024, a lifeless body was discovered by a fisherman in an arm of the Sèvre Nantaise river in Moncoutant sur Sèvre. The Niort public prosecutor’s office immediately opened an investigation into the causes of the death entrusted to the Poitiers research section and the Parthenay research brigade and went to the site in the presence of a forensic doctor and the La Rochelle nautical brigade.

His family launched an appeal on Tuesday April 2 to find him through “citizen mobilization”. In an interview with BFMTV, her mother-in-law asked “humbly to each person to search each space again and again”. This call was addressed to every person within a “radius of 10, 20, 30 kilometers” around the place of Erwan’s disappearance.

She had taken this initiative in particular following progress in the Emile affair, whose bones were found this weekend. “It proved to us that even several months later, in areas where there had been searches, where people had raked the land, we could still find things today.” , she declared.

“The citizen appeal for Erwan” was also broadcast on the Facebook page, Finding Erwan. This was addressed to each “inhabitant, walker, hiker, fisherman, hunter” but also “farmers, forest guards, municipal employees, truck drivers, construction workers” in the sector to whom she asked to “check each field, wood, point water, well, shed, agricultural building…”.

The family had even mentioned the different possible avenues, notably that of the accident and kidnapping with sequestration, addressing the potential responsible for the disappearance of the young man.