The bizarre case of Pauline Picard
An extremely scary and disturbing event took place a few years ago in france. It was April 1922 when two-year-old Pauline Picard was playing on the family farm in Goas al Ludu, Brittany, and disappeared without a trace.
Her parents and the police initially suspected the girl was kidnapped. But there was neither a ransom note nor other evidence of kidnapping. Together with hundreds of helpers, the police searched for clues in the nearby fields and forests. All neighbors and also the inhabitants of the surrounding towns and villages were questioned. Without success. The search turned up no trace of the missing girl and hopes began to fade.
A very strange incident
Shortly after the police had filed the case as unexplained, a scruffy girl matching Pauline’s description was seen in Cherbourg, more than 300 miles away. A local police officer found the girl and placed her in a hospice for caretaking. Authorities showed a photograph of the child to Pauline’s mother and she burst into tears with recognition of her daughter.
Pauline’s parents quickly boarded a train to Cherbourg and took her lost daughter home to the family farm. The other Picard children immediately recognized her little sister. Also the neighbours believed her to be Pauline.
Her parents said that Pauline had worn other clothes on the day of her kidnapping. Otherwise, they were one hundred percent sure to have their missing child again.
Everything seemed fine, but there was a catch: The child looked exactly like Pauline, but it wasn’t behaving like her. The girl did not know any details about the family life of the Picards, the farm and the surrounding area were completely alien to her. Pauline seemed to be fearful and shy, and at no time did she converse in her native dialect. The more time the family spent together, the more the Picards were uncertain if it was really their daughter.
Nevertheless, the police decided to let the child with their supposed parents, because all people involved claimed that it had to be the missing Pauline.
Enter the real horror
About a month later, to be exactly, on May 27, a cyclist had found the body of a little girl about 800 meters from the Picard farm. The body was badly decomposed, The child's head has been chopped off. Next to the body were neatly folded clothes. Pauline’s mother indicated that the clothes were the ones Pauline had on when she disappeared.
The body was found in a place that police investigators searched multiple times during the initial inspection. Residents indicated that they passed that exact spot numerous times and had never seen a body there. Presumably someone had placed the body there at a later date.
But if the dead girl was Pauline, who was the girl who lived with her parents and looked exactly like Pauline?
Until today, this case remains a riddle.
