"How many missing people are buried under X?": for 19 years, this Varois has had no sign of life from his uncle

" Where do you want me to go and find him? It's easier to find a living person than a dead one! "

These words, spoken by a police officer in February 2006, have never been forgotten by Antoine D'amore, nephew of Sauveur Rappa, who has been missing since 2006. " I've been wondering what happened to my uncle for 19 years. I've been thinking for 19 years that things could have been done that weren't done ."

"I saw your uncle! No, idiot, it was me."

Tony is now the same age as your "Uncle Lolo" was when he disappeared. He has the same graying hair and a face so similar. " One day, a friend called me to tell me he'd seen my uncle at a flea market. I asked him where. But I told him, 'Damn it, it was me! '"

Since February 3, 2006, this retiree, who still occasionally sells juniper berries at the markets to occupy his mind, has been living with this mystery. What happened? What happened to him? " It's crazy, but time erases nothing. At least, not for me. I would have loved to find him again, to meditate somewhere ."

Tony isn't kidding himself. If his uncle hasn't given any sign of life to his three children, his grandchildren, his family of Italian origin, it's because he's no longer with us. " You know, when we went to the police station, we felt like we were intruding. He was gone, he was an adult. Period. There's no one to tell you what to do in these cases ."

A sixty-year-old under guardianship

Two decades later, the now sixty-year-old remembers this uncle with whom he got along well, like with an older brother. There was a bond between this divorced man who had returned to live with his mother in Pont-de-Suve and this young boy whom his grandmother looked after. " My uncle was her last, so she looked after him, " he says fondly.

Then, the lives of the entire family were turned upside down. Filled with worry, sadness, waiting, and emptiness. Savior Rappa is gone, and nothing will ever be the same for his loved ones. There are those in denial, and those, like Antoine, who will never stop thinking about solving this mystery.

" One thing is certain: he didn't choose to leave voluntarily. He wasn't in good health and didn't have the means. He was under guardianship, managed at the time by my aunt in Antibes. She gave him 50 euros a week for these small errands. Apart from coming to see me at the market in La Garde and going to the PMU, his life was perfectly regulated ."

From his guarded apartment lined with umbrella pines where the songs of cicadas lull the place, Antoine D'amore has forgotten nothing.

Rappel from the roof to the 7th floor

It all started on Friday, February 3, 2006. The cleaning lady showed up at Sauveur Rappa's home at the Romain-Rolland residence. No one opened the door. She knocked again, but nothing. The door remained closed. " She came by the market where I had my stand to let me know. She told me to go quickly to Uncle Lolo's house ."

Faced with this locked door, he thought it was a fainting spell, an accident. From the bottom of this building, however, the apartment windows were open, in the middle of winter. Strange. " We called the fire department . The easiest thing would have been to go through the door, but it would have required the police and a locksmith ."

The firefighters then climbed onto the roof of the building and rappelled down to the seventh floor. Inside, it was deserted. No sign of the occupant. " We were told: he's not here ."

Located about a hundred meters away, the police station seemed like the place to raise the alarm about the situation. " We were told he was an adult and had the right to disappear voluntarily. That we had to wait 48 hours and come back. My uncle was disabled, sick, had almost no money, and his daily life consisted of his trips to the city center of La Garde! "

A popular mobilization

The next day, one of his cousins broke down the door to inspect the premises. " He wasn't a very good investigator. He just saw that there was laundry in the washing machine ," Tony remarks. " Who's prepared for a situation like this? What to do? Where to look? We didn't have any help... "

The popular mobilization then began. " We started by touring the neighborhood. There was construction going on. My uncle from Grasse joined me on Sunday, and we continued. From Monday onward, we searched again and again in the surrounding area, in the Plan de La Garde, in the streams. We went to question people who knew him. We also filed a complaint for disappearance ."

But nothing seemed to be moving on the part of the justice system and the police. The last trace of his presence, alive, dated back to Tuesday, December 31. " He had called his sister, my aunt, in the Alpes-Maritimes from a telephone booth. He didn't say anything in particular to her ."

On February 14 or 15, 2006, Var-matin broadcast the portrait of Sauveur Rappa with his photo as an appeal for witnesses.

"We needed a helping hand. We were lost!"

" It wasn't until February 21, 2006, three weeks later, that an investigation was opened. We contacted the mayor [Jean-Louis Masson, at the time] who referred us to the municipal police. Joël Canapa, the opposition councillor, helped us so that we could put up posters ."

Tony gathered more than 300 people in Place de la Garde to demonstrate and demand investigations. The wave of solidarity was overwhelming. Volunteers distributed or pasted up posters everywhere, at toll booths, on buses, and more.

" We needed a helping hand. We were lost! We wondered what to do. When a loved one disappears, especially 19 years ago, you were left high and dry! " he notes.

From false leads to false leads until Gap

Antoine D'armore (aptly named, Love in Italian) has gone off on a wild goose chase in Antibes, along the highway in Fréjus, on the Chemin de la Foux. He suddenly stops during the conversation and smiles. " Don't you know what happened to me? "

One day, a caller informed him that his uncle's pension was being paid in Gap and gave him an address. Tony quickly went to the capital city of the Hautes-Alpes department. " I arrived and there, I saw a man from Toulon. I thought my uncle was there ."

A phone call shatters his enthusiasm. " My source told me it wasn't in Gap, but in an association with a phonetically similar name that dealt with guardianships in the Var region. I had seen Gap... "

What about the investigation?

According to Antoine D'amore, the justice system took too long to take stock of the situation. " I hope that twenty years later, we no longer do this with the families of the missing? It was as if my uncle hadn't existed, as if he wasn't an adult in danger, as if nothing had happened to him ."

Days, weeks, and months passed between the disappearance, which could have occurred on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 , and not on February 3. "The young girl who was leading the children from school and whom he used to greet didn't see him that day. On Wednesdays, there was no school. On Thursdays, there was silence too ," the nephew deduced.

Faced with the authorities' inertia, the family chose to rely on the skills of a private investigator. " He gathered evidence. We can legitimately believe that he may have been the victim of a criminal act and that his body was concealed. As for voluntary departure, that's nonsense ."

What if DNA spoke for the missing?

In 2006, Antoine D'amore, in conjunction with the MANU association responsible for helping families of victims of disappearances, already mentioned the need to set up a DNA file in order to establish links between unidentified bodies or bones and reported disappearances.

He tirelessly wonders: what if his uncle's body had been found? What if there had been no connection to his disappearance? " Even today, I wonder how many missing people are buried under anonymous names? "

Her reflection, launched nearly twenty years ago, resonates particularly strongly. In 2023, the reopening of the case of Valérie Pichon's disappearance on June 3, 2003, by the Nanterre Police Department, allowed her family to (finally) receive an answer after twenty years of waiting.

The Valérie Pichon case, identified 20 years later

It took Nathalie Turquey, an investigating judge at the Nanterre Cold Case Unit , six months to discover that Valérie Pichon had been buried under an anonymous name, just a few meters from her home. Her body was discovered in the woods, unidentified, a few days after her disappearance.

No connection had been made between the two cases. The exhumation confirmed, thanks to DNA, that this was indeed the young woman her relatives had been searching for for twenty years.

Genetic sampling in cases of disappearance could allow families to find their loved ones and come to terms with their loss.