Parents of missing exchange student continue search

Otago Daily Times

10 hours ago

The parents of a missing French exchange student, who was seen heading to Piha Beach more than five years ago, and believed to have been last sighted in Te Anau a few days later, have been moved by the kindness of New Zealanders.
The couple say they will not stop their tireless search for their son.
The parents of Eloi Rolland are visiting almost all main police stations in the South Island to see if there is any truth to reports of their son being spotted in Te Anau.
Eloi, who was 18 when he went missing, was last seen on CCTV cameras at a central Auckland train station.
It was believed he was travelling to the black-sand surf beach of Piha on Auckland's west coast.
A 1600-hour police search of the Waitakere Ranges, the dense native bush that surrounds the coast, and surrounding roadways, found no trace of Eloi.
His parents were unable to begin searching for their son until two years later, due to Covid border restrictions.
A French documentary released in 2023 featured an interview with French tourist Oceane Beneteau, who said she met Eloi at a holiday park in Te Anau, just days after he went missing.
The tourist said she spoke to him, remembered his middle name and birthday and other details that matched the then 18-year-old.
She said he was with another man and the two were travelling together in a white car.
Eloi's parents, Thierry and Catherine Rolland, travelled to Auckland in 2022 to search for their son.
The Rollands have now returned and headed to the South Island, from July 11 to follow up on the sighting, and to remind New Zealand police to keep looking.
"We would like that [everyone] keep their eyes open because we don't know where is our son and we hope he's still alive," Mrs Rolland told the Otago Daily Times .
Mrs Rolland said they had visited Te Anau and spoken to the local police about the possible sighting of their son.
They would like police to try to find this second man, his car and, if possible, his licence plate, she said.
A Lakeview Holiday Park representative said, when contacted, she had "no idea" about the sighting.
Eloi's parents confirmed the holiday park was the site where the missing man may have been seen.
They have visited police in Dunedin, Invercargill, Queenstown, Greymouth, Westport, Nelson, Milford Sound, Picton and other stations.
In each town, she gave police an age-enhanced photo of their son who, if still alive, would now be 23.
Mr Rolland said they had received no new information, but had been informed "with certainty" that anyone could travel on the Cook Strait ferry without being checked.
"We know that it's easy to go from North Island to South Island and it's for this reason that we hope that our son is still alive," Mrs Rolland said.
She also acknowledged that there could also be no truth to the Te Anau sighting and that her son could have been lost in the bush in Piha.
"But they found nothing about our son, and it's for this reason, and the testimony of the French tourist that we hope he is still alive," she said.
Eloi's disappearance, along with that of five others on the Auckland west coast since 1992, was the subject of TV3 docuseries Black Coast Vanishings , which also screened in 2023.
After Eloi moved to Auckland in 2019 to study English, he became homesick and started experiencing mental health and interpersonal problems, the documentary said.
The Montpellier native had suffered a romantic rejection, the documentary said, and was fired from two jobs for exhibiting strange behaviour.
Another missing person focused on in the documentary was Iraena Asher.
Police ignored a 111 call from the frightened woman who, after being taken in by a concerned Piha local, fled half-naked into the night in 2004, never to be seen again.
The docuseries investigated whether there was a link between the missing persons, with some believing it was a sinister one.
Former Waitakere City mayor Sir Bob Harvey was one of those believers, who said he thought the disappearances could be the work of one or more serial killers.
None of the bodies of the six has been found.