New Zealand - Eloi Jean Rolland, 18, french exchange student, Auckland, 07 March 2020

[tarabull]

Missing French teen Eloi Rolland: Friends and family still have no answers a year on

 

[lindamichelle1]

Looks like the family is still posting about him being missing even this month

 

[LemonMint]

Alleged death threat not linked to disappearance of French teen Eloi Rolland – police

Eloi is still missing

 

[huhubug]

Article in NZ Herald (Auckland Newspaper) today but paywalled so couldn’t access it but good that Eloi’s name and photo will be fresh in peoples minds as it is mine. Such a sad and mysterious case. Unfortunately the water at Piha is very unforgiving so if any of the missing people ended up in it and weren’t strong swimmers it’s easy to be swept out and your body never recovered (grew up near Piha and went to school with one of the missing girls).

 

[Resourceress]

Why would a foreigner travel to a remote area on their own in the early hours of the morning ? And by foot, no less. Sounds like he was with a group of people who maybe knew the area ? Or perhaps he hitchhiked ?

Do any locals know if there are any attractions one might want to see very early in the morning ? From googlemaps, I can see there is a waterfall on that road Kitekite falls and a look out point. Would these fit in with going to watch sunrise perhaps? I am unsure of the timings.

 

[Ozoner]

Why would a foreigner travel to a remote area on their own in the early hours of the morning ? And by foot, no less. Sounds like he was with a group of people who maybe knew the area ? Or perhaps he hitchhiked ?

Do any locals know if there are any attractions one might want to see very early in the morning ? From googlemaps, I can see there is a waterfall on that road Kitekite falls and a look out point. Would these fit in with going to watch sunrise perhaps? I am unsure of the timings.

Judging from the early news reports, it sounds like he was probably suicidal. If he committed suicide by drowning himself, then I don't think that he'll be found, unfortunately.

 

[Resourceress]

Judging from the early news reports, it sounds like he was probably suicidal. If he committed suicide by drowning himself, then I don't think that he'll be found, unfortunately.

It would be quite a struggle to drown yourself deliberately ... Unless you are suggesting he jumped off a cliff or something ?

 

[Ozoner]

It would be quite a struggle to drown yourself deliberately ... Unless you are suggesting he jumped off a cliff or something ?

People commit suicide by drowning fairly often; he could have jumped off a cliff or off of a bridge, or he could have just swum out to see as far as he could go, taken a breath, and then swum down as deep as he possibly could. He could have exhaled on the way down so that he was out of air by the time he reached his maximum depth. At that point he couldn't have stopped himself from drowning even if he'd wanted to.

 

[Dre]

It would be quite a struggle to drown yourself deliberately ... Unless you are suggesting he jumped off a cliff or something ?

My intuition agrees with you- however, statistics don’t. Websleuths has many cases of people who are last seen walking towards or into water

 

[annpats]

Not much (in fact nothing!) said by his host family in New Zealand.
Surely they could've shed some light on the matter.

 

[bancam]

Eloi’s parents have arrived in New Zealand (now that border restrictions have lifted) to seek information and continue the search...

'We are here': Father's heartbreaking message to missing French teen

Eloi Rolland's parents remain hopeful their son is still alive.

www.nzherald.co.nz

Along with a French film crew...

Stuff

i.stuff.co.nz

Eloi’s parents have created an email address they are widely distributing via the media (see NZ Herald article above) in the hope that Eloi is still alive and able to make contact with them, even if just to help them understand what has happened and set their hearts and minds at ease.

Everybody remains hopeful, even if the chances are slim.

 

[Ozoner]

Eloi’s parents have arrived in New Zealand (now that border restrictions have lifted) to seek information and continue the search...

'We are here': Father's heartbreaking message to missing French teen

Eloi Rolland's parents remain hopeful their son is still alive.

www.nzherald.co.nz

Along with a French film crew...

Stuff

i.stuff.co.nz

Eloi’s parents have created an email address they are widely distributing via the media (see NZ Herald article above) in the hope that Eloi is still alive and able to make contact with them, even if just to help them understand what has happened and set their hearts and minds at ease.

Everybody remains hopeful, even if the chances are slim.

I'd say the chances are slim to none—and Slim died yesterday—but I suppose I'd want to hold out hope in their position.

 

[GuyfromCanada]

MAY 18

Video at link, Eloi's parents are in New Zealand now.

Emotional plea from parents of French teen missing in NZ

Eloi Rolland was last seen in Auckland on March 7, 2020.

www.1news.co.nz

 

[MegJ]

You’re welcome, I just find all of this to be quite curious. Waitemata Police (initially the crime squad) has been dealing with Eloi’s disappearance, and yes they are a fully equipped investigative unit and police force. Because Piha is within this policing district, all the other cases I’ve noted above presumably fall under their jurisdiction also. How well resourced these investigations are I’m not sure but they certainly conducted extensive aerial and ground searches in the initial stages, or so it’s been reported. It’s very easy to simply assume this is another depressed person who has gone off the rails, and it’s possible in each case, but the odd way these people have just vanished with no trace (and no body ever stumbled upon) doesn’t sit right with me. These are all vibrant, healthy, outgoing and skilled young people - Eloi a sailing instructor on an overseas adventure, Guoquan a few weeks off graduating with a computer science degree he’d worked hard for, Kim a qualified nurse in a stable job - not hopeless drifters down on their luck.

I’m sure the detectives have considered whether there are any common patterns or similarities with the cases/people, but nobody seems to ask hard questions anymore and the police are generally not particularly forthcoming on possible scenarios. I’m just surprised how little public and media attention this sort of thing gets now - time was, not so long ago, that these disappearances would be headline news for days on end in a small nation like NZ. Even more so when missing people are visitors to their shores.

If there is a strong suspicion by police that suicide is involved in one or all of these cases then they should say so - rules around the reporting of suicide/suspected suicide by NZ media has long since been relaxed. They don’t need to make oblique references anymore, they can be upfront about it. The Waitakere Ranges bush area and cliffs around the coast unfortunately have a reputation for being places people might go to take their own lives (but almost always a body is recovered). If it was suicide, why did Eloi think to walk all that way out there - a visitor to the country, he wouldn’t ordinarily know “suicide spots” around Auckland any better than I would know them around his hometown in France.

The lack of bodies (or even fragments of clothing or personal possessions they had on them) really makes me wonder what is going on with all of these cases and more specifically at Piha itself. These people seem to have mysteriously vanished.

And I would almost certainly rule out the possibility that any of these people chose to “vanish” themselves to start an entirely new life somewhere with a new identity - NZ is simply not the place to do this, it wouldn’t be easy without access to considerable resources and contacts.

Lots of questions, not many answers I’m afraid. Just a growing number of still missing people in the same area.

Hi there, I am working on a documentary series about the disappearances at Piha including the vanishing of Eloi. We have just been filming with his parents who have finally been able to visit New Zealand. I can see on the thread that you have been following the reports very carefully and wondered if you have done any of your own research. The police seem to have come to a dead end. - Meg

 

[MegJ]

Hi Websleuths, I am a documentary maker working on a series about the disappearances of people from the area around Piha in New Zealand. I"m wondering if anyone on this site has a particular interest in this area or has been doing any digging around any of the disappearances?

 

[huhubug]

Hi Websleuths, I am a documentary maker working on a series about the disappearances of people from the area around Piha in New Zealand. I"m wondering if anyone on this site has a particular interest in this area or has been doing any digging around any of the disappearances?

 

[huhubug]

Best of luck with your documentary I will be very interested to watch it. Some of the disappearances are certainly very odd.

 

[Goldilox]

Hi Websleuths, I am a documentary maker working on a series about the disappearances of people from the area around Piha in New Zealand. I"m wondering if anyone on this site has a particular interest in this area or has been doing any digging around any of the disappearances?

Read the comments on his missing fb page. Referring to LM & HQ

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Eloi is not forgotten. I hope definitive answers will come for his family regarding his fate.

@MegJ please do post here if you do release a documentary. I think many here would be very interested in watching.

 

[Tarik]

There's an existing documentary but mostly in French with subtitles in French for the English portions.