Family including girl, eight, are killed and her brother injured after ‘jumping from Swiss flat’
French family of four including girl, eight, her parents and her aunt are killed and her brother, 15, is found injured after ‘jumping from their Swiss flat’ moments after cops tried to execute a warrant over child home-schooling
The four victims, identified as a 40-year-old man, his 41-year-old wife, her twin sister and the couple’s eight-year-old daughter, died at the scene in MontreuxThe couple’s 15-year-old son was seriously injured and has been hospitalised Police said that the five people appeared to have jumped from their apartment
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A French family of four including an eight-year-old girl, her parents and aunt have died and her teenage brother was seriously injured after the relatives appeared to have jumped from their apartment building in the Swiss resort of Montreux on Lake Geneva, police said.
The family were found at the foot of a seven storey-building in Montreux on Thursday and are believed to have jumped moments after police officers tried to execute a warrant in connection with the home-schooling of a child.
The four victims, identified as a 40-year-old man, his 41-year-old wife, her twin sister and the couple’s eight-year-old daughter, died at the scene, police said. The couple’s 15-year-old son was seriously injured and has been hospitalised.
Alexandre Bisenz, police spokesperson, told the 20 Minutes newspaper that the five people appeared to have jumped from their apartment, near the town’s lakeside casino.
A witness at the scene said they saw the people lying on the ground without shoes before alerting the police.
Four people appeared to have jumped to their death in the Swiss resort of Montreux on Lake Geneva, with a fifth person hospitalised in a serious condition, police said on Thursday
The four victims were found dead at the foot of a seven-story building in Montreux
Two police officers had arrived at the family’s apartment building to execute a warrant in connection with the home schooling of a child on Thursday morning.
A neighbour told Swiss newspaper Le Temps that the officers had knocked on the door and a voice inside the apartment had asked who was there. But when police responded, there was silence inside the home.
‘Unable to make contact with the possible occupants, they left the place,’ police said. ‘In the meantime, a witness called the police to report that people had fallen from the balcony of an apartment.’
Authorities have opened an investigation ‘to determine the exact circumstances and reasons for this tragedy,’ police said. ‘The presence of another person in the apartment at the time of the facts could be excluded at this stage of the investigation.’
The Vaud cantonal police said in a tweet earlier on Thursday morning: ‘Five people were found at the foot of a building. One of the five victims has been hospitalised and is in serious condition. The four others are dead.’
Forensic teams are now taking samples from the balcony of the seventh-floor apartment, with next door neighbours describing a quiet family living there.
‘We heard nothing from their home, the father never said hello in the hallway and ordered many packages almost daily,’ neighbour Claude Rouiller told Swiss newspaper Le Temps.
Rouiller said there was a strong smell of incense coming from the family’s apartment for the past few days, while other neighbours claim the family were part of a cult.
Another resident, who lives on the first floor of the apartment building, described hearing a ‘thud’ at around 7am on Thursday morning.
The neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous, said he went outside to investigate and saw five bodies.
‘I thought it was a bad film, I couldn’t fix the image for more than a few seconds,’ he said.
Police officers take samples on a balcony after five people appeared to have jumped from their apartment, in Montreux, Switzerland, on Thursday
The five people ‘would have visibly thrown themselves into the void from the apartment,’ Bisenz told news agency Keystone-ATS, adding that the police were alerted to the incident by passersby.
Bisenz said that an investigation is underway and the five people were found at about 7 a.m. Thursday outside a building near the city’s famed Casino Barriere. He declined to provide further details.
Around 30 police officers are at the scene and white forensic tents have been set up in front of the apartment building.
Montreux, a bucolic lakeside city, is best known as a tourist hot spot and in particular for its annual jazz festival.
Bisenz declined to indicate if the victims were Swiss nationals or foreigners.
