The Facebook Trail

Welsh police have been trying to find Emeline Essertel since last March, when she jumped bail and disappeared through the porous European Union borders.

Bonjour from Dublin's Grafton Street Bridge

Ms. Essertel was working as an au pair and discovered that her salary was inadequate to her needs, forcing her to steal her employer's debit card. She used it to purchase telephone time, which is only to be expected. A native of France, she probably missed her family and needed to talk. Maybe she despised the family she worked for and had to vent to someone.

At any rate, she was caught and then granted bail. It wasn't as if she'd stolen valuable paintings or cleared out someone's bank account. A petty crime didn't call for incarceration.

Set free, Ms. Essertel missed her court date and the police couldn't seem to find her where she said she would be in London.

How to find a person in these modern times? Check their Facebook page. And so, the police did.

The nanny-on-the-run claimed in a Facebook post that she had left England to go into rehab, having stolen from her employer to buy drugs. Apparently there are no rehab centers in England. Or Ms. Essertel saw what happened to British anti-rehab singer Amy Winehouse and thought that she would have better luck in a different country.

Judging by her Facebook postings, the poor woman is going from country to country in search of rehab opportunities, and finding them in unusual places. She went to Dublin for the Heineken Cup last April, for example, and toured the city of Dublin with someone because she clearly did not post selfies to her Facebook page. She also returned to her native France, where she spent some time drinking with friends. Or perhaps it was a photograph of an intervention and the police merely mis-read the image.

If you happen to spot Ms. Essertel, the police service in Wales would like to hear from you.

She is available for hire if you're in need of a nanny who cannot be entirely trusted with your personal items. And the further away from England you reside, the more likely it is that she would accept employment. Just keep your valuables locked up. And keep her away from your children.

She hasn't completed a stint in rehab, by the looks of things on Facebook.