Joseph Dancet, photographed on the day he found Blake’s thigh bone.
An amazing story: 70-year old makes it his mission to find a body – and succeeds after 2.5 years.
British mountain lover Blake Hartley, 25, vanished inexplicably and without trace in Chamonix, France in August 2004. Despite a massive search operation he was never found.
A 70-year old local man, Joseph Dancet, was convinced at the time he saw a body floating in a nearby river, but nobody believed him. Despite being ridiculed by the entire village, he made it his mission to find Blake, and spent the past two and a half years looking for him.
On 31 December last year, Dancet (now 73 years old) found a human femur in a marsh at 60 kilometers from Chamonix, which he handed over to the gendarmes. DNA tests have this week confirmed that the thigh bone was indeed that of Blake.
Ever since Blake Hartley was lost, his family has updated a dedicated website. The last entry by his mother:
I have just heard from the Vice-Consul in Lyons that the bone is definitely Blake. Joseph promised me he would find Blake and he did. We will be flying out to France again to complete the search.
I guess this is a bit like having someone close to you with a terminal illness, you know what the ending is going to be but when it comes it is still a shock and so very painful.
