Police investigating the disappearance of tragic Nora Quoirin took her parents to a group of four mediums in a desperate bid to crack the case.
They held a two-hour audience last Monday night - the day before the 15-year-old was found dead - but Meabh, 45, and Sebastien, 47, left after just an hour.
A source last night told the Mirror: "Police were under pressure and really struggling with the case.
"They wanted to do anything and everything they could to find a breakthrough.
"And during the ceremony, which took place on Pantai Hill, the mediums asked "spirits" to return Nora to her family, which many locals now believe was behind her being found."
Just 48 hours before the meeting, which led to a "spiritual ceremony", Negri Sembilan police chief Mohamad Mat Yusof had admitted: "We have no sign of her and no credible leads".
Police have since faced criticism for failing to find Nora, who tragically died an agonising death in the jungle after surviving for up to a week as search teams desperately tried to find her.
Her body was finally discovered naked by a team of volunteer hikers on Tuesday - ten days after she disappeared from the Dusun Rainforest Resort,where the family, including younger siblings Innes, 12, and Maurice,eight, were spending their first of three booked nights.
The remote area where she was found - a mile-and-a-half from the luxury resort - had previously been searched by rescue teams, which included hundreds of people, police dogs, a helicopter and drones fitted with thermal imaging cameras to search through the night.
Before her body was found, Nora's family had told police they believed she must have been abducted due to the severity of her debilitating brain condition holoprosencephaly - which left her with a smaller than average brain - and meant she would "not go anywhere alone”.
But Malaysian police - who last night tried to downplay the meeting with the mediums - announced on Thursday there was no evidence of criminality after it was revealed Nora's autopsy had found she died after suffering intestinal bleeding, probably caused by starvation and stress.
Questions have since been raised by family members and their French lawyer about how Nora - whose disability caused her difficulty with walking,balancing and looking after herself - could have physically reached the remote waterfall area where she was found.
Meabh and Sebastien are today due to leave Malaysia two weeks after arriving in the country with Nora - but they will not return to the family home in Balham, south-west London.
Nora's body was signed out of the morgue at Tuanku Jaafar Hospital at 40
minutes past midnight on Saturday morning and false reports yesterday said they had left Kuala Lumpur Airport with Nora's body on Saturday.
However, we can reveal their plans were delayed waiting for officials to organise the international paperwork and permits needed.
Repatriation proceedings were last night underway and Nora's body, which is now being kept in a Kuala Lumpur funeral parlour, will follow on within days.