4 out of 5-member family jump to death one after the other from 7th-floor of apartment
Image: BioSoCa
Police in the Swiss town of Montreux are investigating what they suspect to be a ‘collective suicide’ involving a family of five people.
The deceased, according to reports, jumped from the seventh-floor of their apartment one after the other and died.
Reports say Eric David, 40, his 41-year-old wife, Nasrine Feraoun, her twin sister Narjisse, and the couple's eight-year-old daughter were found dead at the bottom of the building last Thursday.
The couple’s 15-year-old son, who survived, was seriously injured and is currently in a coma at the hospital.
According to Vaud regional police, they are working on a theory of "collective suicide" and their findings suggest "all the victims jumped from the balcony one after the other".
In a statement on Tuesday, March 29, the police said that officers had visited the family’s home to effect an arrest warrant in relation to the home-schooling of one of the couple’s children.
When the officers knocked on the door, they heard a voice asking who they were, but the house went quiet shortly after.
Having seen no one, the two officers left, but it was later detected that the family jumped from the balcony of the building 65 feet high and landed on the hard ground to their death.
"Before or during the events, no witnesses, including the two police officers present on the spot from 6:15 am and the passers-by at the foot of the building, heard the slightest noise or cry coming from the apartment or the balcony.
"Technical investigations show no warning signs of such an act," they added, noting however that "since the start of the pandemic, the family was very interested in conspiracy and survivalist theories," the police said in a statement.
Authorities suspect it was a collective suicide because they could not see any trace of struggle to suggest otherwise.
A neighbour of the family, Claude Rouiller, told Swiss newspaper Le Temps: "We heard nothing from their home, the father never said hello in the hallway and ordered many packages almost daily."
Police found that, aside from Nasrine Feraoun’s twin sister, who worked outside, the entire family lived in virtual self-sufficiency, having amassed a well-organised stockpile of various foods, taking up much of their living space but enabling them to see out a major crisis.
Also, only the 8-year-old girl who did not attend school and her mother’s twin mother were registered with the authorities, a development that raised suspicion that they might be hiding.
"All these elements suggest... fear of the authorities interfering in their lives," the police statement said.
Pulse.com.gh
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