Disappearance of Antoine de Brugerolle - police looking for a white Peugeot car.

Le Figaro 10/11/08

Antoine's mother and her partner, who state they don't drive, were allegedly seen driving alone in a car.

Consulting vehicle licensing records, checking with garages, searching through motorway tolls: two months after little Antoine's disappearance in Issoire, the police step up their investigations with the hope of finding a white Peugeot car in which a witness states having seen the child's mother and her partner driving on the outskirts of the small town, alone, a few days before the alert was issued.

Considered to be "reliable" by the investigators of the unit "Disappearance 63", this witness statement, if confirmed by physical evidence, could move the case forward because since she reported her son's disappearance on September 11th at 9.47pm, Alexandrine Brugerolle de Fraissinette, who has neither a car nor driving licence, maintains that she does not know how to drive - same with her partner, Sébastien Ribière. "Since the start, their defence rests notably on this statement, a source close to the case reveals. If the child's body has not been found in Issoire in spite of a great many searches, we must accept that someone has transported it out of the town, probably in a motor vehicle - of which they state they are incapable."

Bin bags

In the days that followed the child's disappearance, the police wondered why Alexandrine Brugerolle obtained a pack of 100 litre bin bags on September 10th, which were not found in her home. In custody, she indicated having made that purchase in error before going back and exchanging them at Monoprix for 30 litre bags. However, checks with the supermarket did not confirm that version, the check-outs not having retained any trace of the exchange.

Exploring all leads, including that of an abduction, the investigators are also interested in a debt of "several thousand euros" that Alexandrine's partner allegedly ran up in connection with drug trafficking near Clermont. "At the moment, that hypothesis is not backed up by any real facts", a source close to the investigation explains, however. In the end, several police officers continue to work on the theory according to which the child could have been taken from his mother by a third party wishing to offer him a "better" life.

In this context, checks were made with the people around Alexandrine, for the moment, without result. Antoine's mother, aged 23, recently found a place to live in Clermont-Ferrand. "Before that, for a time she took refuge with her father who left soon after her birth, recently moved back to Puy-de-Dôme," her lawyer Anne-Laure Lebert explains, and goes on: "My client, who is unjustly suspected from the start, is trying to stay hopeful of seeing her son alive again - but she is afraid that the delay at the beginning of the investigation may not be made up."