“For many years I have gone out once or twice a week to explore Montserrat, there are inaccessible channels, like the one I crossed from the Salt de la Nina path. That day I saw a boot, it seemed strange to me because it is a quite impassable area. I went over, took it and inside there was a sock and the bones of a foot”, says Francesc Pozo, a veteran hiker from Olesa de Montserrat. With this discovery, Pozo provided a clue that would lead to the unraveling of a case that dates back to October 5, 2014, when Damien Vigouroux disappeared in this massif. The person in charge of the investigation unit of the Basic Police Area of ​​Anoia confirms to La Vanguardia that the DNA tests recently received indicate that the human remains discovered by Pozo, on February 23, 2022, and those that the Mossos found the following day, They correspond to Vigouroux, a 31-year-old French engineer and resident of Martorell.

Mossos, Firefighters, Rural Agents and the Red Cross assigned hundreds of people for almost two weeks, including ground forces, aerial means and the canine unit, to search for Vigouroux, but it was the chance of a regular walker to the inhospitable places of Montserrat. that led to the discovery of the place where the hiker fell.

Vigouroux said goodbye at 11 in the morning on Sunday, October 5, to his ex-wife and mother of his 3-year-old son, with whom he maintained a good friendship, to go on an excursion. He left Martorell, left his Seat Ibiza in the Can Maçana car park and headed towards Montgròs. A little over three hours later, he took the road back and everything suggests that he accidentally fell into an unnamed channel between Miranda dels Aurons and Roques del Salt de la Nina on the demanding route of the Sphinx pass. During the excursion, he sent several messages and two photos to his ex-partner and a group of friends, the last one at three in the afternoon. “He said that he had been walking for more than three hours and that he was already returning home, that he was tired, had run out of water and it was starting to rain,” says the head of the Mossos who was directing the investigations at that time. The first image he took showed a Hispanic goat in the Portella Petita area, before the Vicenç Barbé refuge, and the second showed views of the Bisbe and Prenyada needles from Montgròs.

The next day, Monday the 6th, his ex-wife, worried about not hearing from him, reported the events at the Martorell police station. At the same time, his friends went to Montserrat, verified that the car was still in Can Maçana, spoke with the refuge guard and tried to make the itinerary that Damien could have followed.

The Mossos began the search that Monday, to which the Fire Department of the Generalitat joined. The unsuccessful searches lasted until October 17, but in mid-November they were activated again to accompany dozens of residents of Vigouroux’s hometown, Les Planes, who organized a raid. The situation was distressing. The indications presaged that the young engineer who worked in the automotive sector had suffered an accident, although other hypotheses were open. “We continue to investigate and extend the statements to the environment of people close to Vigouroux to rule out a criminal motive, suicide or a voluntary disappearance, but everything led us to think of a fall when he was back,” the same sources detail.

Montserrat inspires respect for its orography. “It is an untamed, steep terrain, it has many channels with very difficult exits, its thick vegetation means that nothing can be seen from the air”, describes the geographer Miquel Soro, author of several guides to this massif and the map of Alpina.

The discovery of the boot, on February 23, 2022, by Francesc Pozo, was key. The hiker notified the Mossos and took them that same afternoon to the point where he had found the footwear, at an altitude of 992 meters, in a channel that ends on the Salt de la Nina path. It was getting dark and they had to leave it. The next day, the Mossos went up the said channel and discovered, higher up, at 1,095 meters, more bones, remains of the pants, the belt and other clothing, as well as a backpack. Inside there was no identification but there were the keys to a Seat Ibiza, those of his apartment, those of his ex-partner’s house and three coins. Everything fit, it had to be Damien, but the case could not be considered closed until the results of the DNA tests carried out at the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Catalonia were obtained, which the Mossos indicate that they did not have in their hands until some days ago.

The most plausible conclusion, based on the analysis of the points where the remains were found, is that on the way to the Pass of the Sphinx, from a height of 1,150 meters, he got lost and fell into an unnamed channel.

Although expected, a sad ending, with the only consolation for Damien’s loved ones being able to recover his remains and heal the uncertainty.