TRAGEDY AFTER CUSTODY BATTLES: Hopes are fading of finding twin six-year-old girls, who have now been missing for 10 days, after their father ran away with them and then committed suicide
Twin six-year-old girls missing for 10 days from their home in Switzerland were last seen on a ferry to Corsica with their now-dead father, a Marseille prosecutor said Wednesday.
As hopes of finding the girls alive diminished, prosecutor Jacques Dallest told a news conference in Marseille that three witnesses had seen the twins on board the ferry with their father after he bought tickets in Marseille for the crossing to Propriano in Corsica.
“We know since yesterday (Tuesday) from passengers on the boat between Marseille and Propriano that he was with the little girls,” Dallest told journalists.
Family members have said they fear the worst after the father, Matthias Schepp, committed suicide in southeastern Italy last Thursday, having failed to return daughters Alessia and Livia to his estranged wife Irina Lucidi on January 30.
Investigators had been unable to determine if the children had taken the overnight ferry which left Marseille Monday last week after a witness reported seeing the father buying a ticket earlier the same day.
However a woman in a neighbouring cabin on the ferry “explained that she heard children crying in the evening and that shortly afterwards, she saw the little girls and was able to formally identify one,” Dallest said.
The prosecutor said the woman had later seen “the little girls in the play room of the boat”.
Dallest said investigators had drawn a blank on the girls’ whereabouts after the crossing — though “an elderly man” might have seen them get off the ferry in Propriano — and they were increasingly pessimistic about the chances of finding them alive
"Unfortunately the worst scenario appears likely even if anything is possible and we have not found any children’s bodies at the time of speaking,” he said.
“Since the arrival of the ferry in Propriano on February 1 in the morning and his suicide on the evening of February 3 we have no official testimony establishing that the girls were with him,” he said.
“There are lots of theories and the saddest and most tragic is that he ended the lives of the little girls, that he killed them, either on the ferry journey from Marseille to Propriano, or after.”
The family of the mother have also admitted to fearing the worst after they received 4,400 euros from the father, sent by post last Thursday shortly before he threw himself under a train in southeastern Italy.
“It worries us because the theory that he might have paid someone to keep the children doesn’t hold any more,” the uncle, Valerio Lucidi, said Tuesday as the family retreated behind closed doors in the quiet lakeside dormitory village of St-Sulpice in western Switzerland.
Police also said the posting of the money cast doubt on the theory that he had paid someone to look after the children.
The couple, reportedly both employees of tobacco giant Philip Morris, were in the midst of a tense separation and had shared custody of the children prior to Schepp’s unexplained dash by car from Switzerland to Italy, through the southern French port of Marseille, which the uncle described as “complete madness”.
Prior to the sightings on the boat, the last confirmed trace of the blond haired daughters, who were wearing colourful clothing and distinctive spectacles, dates back to the day they disappeared, January 30, according to investigators.
Father commits suicide, twins missing
TRAGEDY AFTER CUSTODY BATTLES: Hopes are fading of finding twin six-year-old girls, who have now been missing for 10 days, after their father ran away with them and then committed suicide
Twin six-year-old girls missing for 10 days from their home in Switzerland were last seen on a ferry to Corsica with their now-dead father, a Marseille prosecutor said Wednesday.
As hopes of finding the girls alive diminished, prosecutor Jacques Dallest told a news conference in Marseille that three witnesses had seen the twins on board the ferry with their father after he bought tickets in Marseille for the crossing to Propriano in Corsica.
“We know since yesterday (Tuesday) from passengers on the boat between Marseille and Propriano that he was with the little girls,” Dallest told journalists.
Family members have said they fear the worst after the father, Matthias Schepp, committed suicide in southeastern Italy last Thursday, having failed to return daughters Alessia and Livia to his estranged wife Irina Lucidi on January 30.
Investigators had been unable to determine if the children had taken the overnight ferry which left Marseille Monday last week after a witness reported seeing the father buying a ticket earlier the same day.
However a woman in a neighbouring cabin on the ferry “explained that she heard children crying in the evening and that shortly afterwards, she saw the little girls and was able to formally identify one,” Dallest said.
The prosecutor said the woman had later seen “the little girls in the play room of the boat”.
Dallest said investigators had drawn a blank on the girls’ whereabouts after the crossing — though “an elderly man” might have seen them get off the ferry in Propriano — and they were increasingly pessimistic about the chances of finding them alive
"Unfortunately the worst scenario appears likely even if anything is possible and we have not found any children’s bodies at the time of speaking,” he said.
“Since the arrival of the ferry in Propriano on February 1 in the morning and his suicide on the evening of February 3 we have no official testimony establishing that the girls were with him,” he said.
“There are lots of theories and the saddest and most tragic is that he ended the lives of the little girls, that he killed them, either on the ferry journey from Marseille to Propriano, or after.”
The family of the mother have also admitted to fearing the worst after they received 4,400 euros from the father, sent by post last Thursday shortly before he threw himself under a train in southeastern Italy.
“It worries us because the theory that he might have paid someone to keep the children doesn’t hold any more,” the uncle, Valerio Lucidi, said Tuesday as the family retreated behind closed doors in the quiet lakeside dormitory village of St-Sulpice in western Switzerland.
Police also said the posting of the money cast doubt on the theory that he had paid someone to look after the children.
The couple, reportedly both employees of tobacco giant Philip Morris, were in the midst of a tense separation and had shared custody of the children prior to Schepp’s unexplained dash by car from Switzerland to Italy, through the southern French port of Marseille, which the uncle described as “complete madness”.
Prior to the sightings on the boat, the last confirmed trace of the blond haired daughters, who were wearing colourful clothing and distinctive spectacles, dates back to the day they disappeared, January 30, according to investigators.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Trending
Latest Videos