On August 9, 1988, police from Saône-et-Loire spotted a Volkswagen Type 2 microbus parked on a dead end road leading to a TGV line that was under construction in the town of Bussières. The police approached the vehicle, thinking that it might belong to environmentalists opposed to the TGV project. Pierre Chanal was inside the vehicle and, when questioned by one of the policemen, explained that he was an "NCO taking advantage of some leave time to do some tourism." The police requested identification, at which time they realized that he was assigned to the 4th Dragoon Regiment in Mourmelon from 1977 to 1986, drawing the connection to the Mourmelon disappearances. The other policeman spotted the head of a man wrapped in a blanket through the rear window of the vehicle. The man, freed from his restraints, was a 20-year old Hungarian named Palázs Falvay. He explained that he'd been hitchhiking the night before in Chalon-sur-Saône and Chanal had picked him up.