Three days after his disappearance in Deux-Sèvres, Erwan Blais, 18, remains nowhere to be found. Update on the investigation.
The search has continued since Sunday and the disappearance of Erwan Blais. An investigation into a “disturbing disappearance” was opened by the Niort public prosecutor’s office. At this stage, no avenue is still favored. This Tuesday, February 13, the search accelerated, notes BFMTV, according to which a drone as well as divers were mobilized. The news channel also reports that the number of gendarmes mobilized on the case has been multiplied by three. Thus, while around twenty gendarmes were in place on Tuesday morning, no less than 63 were on the bridge in the afternoon, specifies a press release from the public prosecutor. But the searches were again in vain.
On Wednesday, the gendarmes must, however, continue the search, particularly in the Pescalis park in Moncoutant-sur-Sèvre, which is none other than the largest nature and fishing activity park in Europe, and is located not far from the nightclub where Erwan Blais was last seen alive this weekend. According to BFMTV, the young man left the nightclub where he was partying with his friends around 2:30 a.m. He would have been kicked out by security guards after a “no serious” incident. He would then appear on video surveillance images of the nightclub. “We see him crossing the parking lot of the nightclub, then nothing because of a spotlight which dazzles the camera,” explains his stepmother Karine to the news channel, specifying that “Erwan is a fairly balanced teenager, comfortable in his shoes, with the classic life of a young person continuing his studies. He is a young person like there are so many.” In any case, his phone would have stopped transmitting around 2:50 a.m.
With Ouest-France, a friend of Erwan Blais, who was with him on the evening of the disappearance, also spoke about the events. Assuring that the young man did not arrive drunk at a nightclub, but that he had, like him, “simply drunk a little”, he confides that he, during the evening, separated from him, going to see other friends. It was only at the end of the evening, when the nightclub was empty, that he would have realized her absence. Numerous searches in and around the nightclub followed, without success, before a call to the gendarmerie.
While a hunt was organized on Monday, bringing together no less than 120 people, the trail of a parking lot was mentioned by investigators. “We carried out tracking on Sunday and Monday with two dog teams, which led us to the same place, namely the parking lot of the Le Saint-Pierre restaurant,” revealed the gendarmerie to our colleagues at 20 Minutes.
But this path remains fragile. Once we arrived at the parking lot, “we lost track of the young man,” said the same source. According to the daily, it is in this parking lot that Erwan parked his vehicle before going, on foot, to the nightclub, located 500 meters away. A helicopter was therefore sent by the police. Objective: “to fly over the shoulders of the roads, in case the young man was hit by a vehicle”, specifies the gendarmerie which indicates however that this “did nothing”. Surrounding ponds as well as the Sèvre Niortaise were also surveyed by a nautical brigade.
The authorities launched a wanted notice this Monday, February 12, after the disappearance of Erwan, aged 18, who has not given any sign of life since the night from Saturday to Sunday. The young man was seen leaving a nightclub in Moncoutant-sur-Sèvre, in Deux-Sèvres, around 2:30 a.m., called La Morinière. Investigators said this is the last location his phone was believed to have been geolocated.
According to information from Ouest-France, the young man left the evening alone. Noticing his disappearance, his group of friends reportedly started looking for him inside the nightclub, but to no avail. As indicated by France Bleu, significant resources were deployed by the gendarmerie to find Erwan. This Sunday, February 11, around twenty gendarmes, accompanied by a dog team and a helicopter had already been mobilized to search for the student.
The young man’s family opened a Facebook page dedicated to his search allowing anyone with information to share it with the family and the authorities. A hunt was therefore also organized this Monday to try to find Erwan. In a Facebook post, the sister of the missing man specified that Erwan was wearing “black jeans, a dark green Nike sweatshirt, black and white sneakers” at the time of his disappearance.
