A couple seen for the last time after a romantic date, a homeless father searched for by his relatives, a student who disappears in India… the Lyonnais youtuber Marine Bou discloses cases of disappearances to “help” families.
“Hello everyone, we meet today for a new video. Today it will be about the disappearance of…”, the 32-year-old proclaims like a trick at the beginning of each format. Since its creation three years ago, the channel “Marine B. Enquêtes-disparitions-cases unsolved” has broadcast a hundred videos and gained 46,000 subscribers.
One or two weeks of preparation.
“Preparing a file takes from a week to 10 days or even two weeks, depending on whether or not I go to see the families in the field,” explains who “does everything, from A to Z”: search for information, scripts, interviews, filming, editing, editing.
The videos he presents on camera from his living room mainly deal with disappearances that occurred in France, with tens of thousands of views on average. The most viewed: that of a young couple, Roxane and Nabil, who disappeared in Biarritz in February: 240,000 queries.
His channel also analyzes notable cases, sometimes solved, such as those of Delphine Jubillar in 2020 in Tarn or Leslie Hoorelbeke and Kevin Trompat in Deux-Sèvres in 2022.
“Go a little further into the unknown”
Nothing predestined this former cancer researcher to the competitive world of YouTubers: visibility depends on the regularity of broadcasts and the YouTube algorithm.
The “click” came thanks to Quebecer Victoria Charlton, who has 710,000 news-loving subscribers and leads the French-speaking “True Crimes” niche. In the wake of the Canadian, a handful of young YouTubers compete against each other, Marine Bou stands out for specializing in disappearances. “To help the families” of the missing, “so that they really have a use,” she said.
Since November 2021, Marine Bou has become a volunteer researcher for the “Assistance and Search for Missing Persons” (ARPD) association that was looking for “a YouTuber to report their cases”, in images.
What she does, on the ARPD website and on its YouTube channel, with the agreement of the families, under the association’s logo. You get paid with views and product placement, such as promoting a VPN service.
“A right of inspection”
Created in 2003 and made up of more than 150 volunteer investigators – a third of whom are former police or gendarmes, detectives, active or retired magistrates – the ARPD helps families find the trail of missing people, with calls to witnesses, help in procedures and field investigation. For her first collaboration, Marine Bou found a father who had become homeless after her divorce.
The association acts at the request of families who only pay their membership: 40 euros. The YouTuber asks them to collect information, photographs and family videos. And it gives them “a right of inspection” before transmission.
He worked with Nicolas Payoux looking for his 21-year-old sister, who disappeared without explanation after a party and was found dead a month later in a forest in Tarn-et-Garonne. The gendarmes concluded that it was a suicide, the video broadcast during the search and released recently “helped me to advance better” in the mourning work, “as a last tribute,” she told AFP.
According to the ARPD, of which Marine Bou has become vice president, around 74,000 people disappear in France every year, including 51,000 minors.
Source: BFM TV
