Missing Swiss twins spotted in France
2011-02-06 18:31
Rome - Police in Italy, Switzerland and France are searching for a pair of 6-year old twin girls after their father died in an apparent suicide.
The body of Matthias Kaspar Schepp, a Canadian-born resident of Switzerland, was found near a railway station in southern Italy on Thursday. Police believe he threw himself under a train.
On the previous Monday, he sent a postcard from Marseille to his wife, saying he was desperate and could not live without her.
According to Italian news reports, the man picked up his daughters Alessia and Livia from their mother's home in Lausanne, Switzerland, on January 28, but failed to return them at the end of the weekend as scheduled. The couple are reportedly separated.
Italian police official Alfredo Fabbrocini said on Sunday that after leaving Lausanne, Schepp travelled to Marseille and Toulon, France, before showing up in Italy. He said the search was on in all three nations.
The missing twins were spotted in the French city of Marseille with their father last week as he bought tickets for Corsica, Swiss police said on Sunday.
Car found
The father, Matthias Schepp, reserved "three tickets to embark (by boat) that evening for Corsica" at a Marseille travel agency on Monday, police said in a statement.
He was spotted there accompanied by his 6-year-old girls, Alessia and Livia. The car he had been driving was found on Thursday at Cerignola in Italy's southern Puglia region, police said.
The Marseille boat left on Monday evening for Propriano, Corsica, where it arrived the following morning, Swiss police said.
"In all likelihood, he had his two girls on board," they said. "But we have no witness accounts of this at the moment."
- SAPA
