twin girls abducted by their father

Investigation of missing Swiss twins upendedBy JOHN HEILPRIN - Feb 16, 2011 9:59 PM GMT

By The Associated Press


LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss police now say the missing 6-year-old twins might never have left Switzerland at all — throwing the entire investigation into doubt — and French investigators say they could even be alive.

After spending weeks searching for the girls, Swiss police and the public prosecutor's office for the canton (state) of Vaud said Wednesday there is no way of telling whether any witnesses actually saw Matthias Kaspar Schepp whisk away his daughters from Lausanne to Marseille, France, and then to the French island of Corsica and possibly to Italy.

"Anything is possible now," Vaud police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel told The Associated Press on Wednesday night. "We can't rule anything out."

The surprise turn of events came as authorities held news conferences in Marseille and later in Lausanne. Investigators say they have been unable to confirm any of the alleged witness sightings of the girls since they were seen playing at 1 p.m. Jan. 30 with a neighbor's child in their hometown of Saint-Sulpice, part of Lausanne, along Lake Geneva.

Until Wednesday, the search had focused on Corsica, where Schepp was thought to have brought the girls. He later committed suicide in Italy on Feb. 3, police said.

Swiss police said investigators were now looking for a large, dark station wagon with Swiss license plates that was similar to the one driven by Schepp. Sauterel told the AP that witnesses had reported seeing the Audi A6 in different places in Corsica at exactly the same time.

The sighting of the second Audi is "confusing the witness accounts," Sauterel said. He added that it should, however, be easier to find the driver of the second car to eliminate its route from investigations as it was during a low tourist season.

Sauterel and Eric Cottier, the public prosecutor for Vaud, told reporters the implications of that include the possibility the girls never left Lausanne.

Cottier said 100 people have called or written to the police with information, but none of it has led to evidence of the girls' whereabouts.

"In Switzerland, every tip, every concrete thing, was checked to find the two girls," he said.

They said Italian police had found fragments of the GPS navigation system from Schepp's Audi on the railroad tracks not far from where he threw himself in front of the train in Cerignola, Italy.

The GPS was too damaged to retrieve any data from it, and Sauterel said it seemed Schepp had removed the GPS and tried to deliberately destroy it. He also said the will police found that Schepp had written on Jan. 27 — the same day his wife e-mailed him to say she wanted a divorce — did not contain any details of an alleged plan to kill the children, contrary to some news reports. Schepp and his wife had been separated for six months.

Hope of finding the twins alive has faded since last week, when a letter from their father surfaced, saying he had killed them but leaving no other clues. Schepp committed suicide the same day he mailed the letter to his wife from Italy.

Investigators in France, Italy and Switzerland have been trying to trace the father's path after he left his home near Lake Geneva on Jan. 30. He then traveled to southern France, Corsica and Italy — either with or without his daughters.

Investigators from the three countries huddled in the southern French city of Marseille on Wednesday to coordinate efforts. They said no possibilities had been ruled out, including that the girls are still alive.

"The inquiry is still very active," Marseille Prosecutor Jacques Dallest told reporters.

___

Don McCaughan in Marseille, France contributed to this report.


Link http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-16/investigation-of-missing-swiss-twins-upended.html

Missing Twins: New lead:

Swiss woman is an accomplice

The chanel of Italian TV RAI involves a Swiss woman of 27 years, Katia Iritani, in the disappearance of the Swiss twins Alessia and Livia, six. Thus gains strength the hypothesis that Matthias Schepp have had an accomplice in this puzzling case.

A new clue came during a program of RAI 3, in which two witnesses said they had seen the children's father, his two daughters and Katia, who disappeared on Montbovon (Switzerland) on 25th January, shortly before the man has kidnapped the twins of the house of his former wife, Irina.

Although not remember the exact date in which the two witnesses saw the four at a toy store in a shopping center in Cantù, northern Italy, believe they have been in mid-January, two weeks before the kidnapping. Already Ornek Olga, who said she saw the twins with their father and a woman in Corsica, states have almost sure that this is Katia.

http://www.cmjornal.xl.pt/detalhe/noticias/internacional/mundo/mulher-suica-e-cumplice

Memory chip may help determine whereabouts of missing Swiss twins

Mar 5, 2011, 14:20 GMT

Cerignola, Italy - A memory chip found in Cerignola on Saturday and believed to belong to a car navigator used by the father of missing six-year-old Swiss twin girls, is to be examined for clues on their whereabouts, Italian news reports said.

The chip was found under some pebbles near the railway track where the father, Matthias Schepp, committed suicide by throwing himself under a train on February 3, the ANSA news agency said.

Investigators plan to send the chip to the US-based manufacturer of the navigator to determine whether it is possible to access the device's memory, including possibly the route taken by Schepp with the twins, ANSA said.

Four days before his suicide, the 43-year-old father picked up Alessia and Livia from the home of his estranged wife in Switzerland and drove them across the border into France.

The children were last seen on a ferry from the French port of Marseille to the island of Corsica. The ferry left Marseille on January 31 and arrived the following morning.

Last month, Swiss media reported that Schepp had sent a letter to twins' mother, Irina Lucidi, suggesting they were dead.

In the letter, Schepp reportedly wrote: 'They are resting in peace. They did not suffer.'

Schepp was separated from his Swiss-Italian wife. She is reported to have recently sought a divorce.


Link http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1623879.php/Memory-chip-may-help-determine-whereabouts-of-missing-Swiss-twins[/quote]

Lets hope so....

Police: 6-year-old twins last seen alive in Geneva


Published On Mon Mar 07 2011


GENEVA—More than five weeks after missing 6-year-old Swiss twins were last seen, witnesses have confirmed the girls and their father were in Geneva on the afternoon of their disappearances.

The sighting, between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on January 30, is the latest confirmed sighting of Alessia and Livia Schepp since their father — Matthias Schepp — picked them up from their home in Lausanne.

The three reportedly boarded a ferry for Propriano, in Corsica, on Jan. 31, but authorities could not confirm that the twins ever left the boat.

Schepp’s body was found under a train days later in Cerignola, Italy after he sent a letter to his wife saying the girls were “resting in peace, they didn’t suffer” — and he would now kill himself.

Swiss police in the canton (state) of Vaud said Monday witnesses had “specific information to suggest that it was Alessia, Livia and their father” they had seen.

Italian police found a microchip from Schepp’s car’s navigational device on Saturday.

The police official in Foggia leading the investigation said the chip was found Saturday about 15 metres from where Matthias Schepp, 43, threw himself under a train in Cerignola, in the Puglia region of southeastern Italy, on Feb. 3.

Alfredo Fabbrocini says the microchip will be sent to its U.S. manufacturer in hopes it contains data about the route driven by Schepp in the days after he and his daughters Alessia and Livia disappeared from their mother’s home in Switzerland.


Link http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/949892--police-6-year-old-twins-last-seen-alive-in-geneva?bn=1

I really hope these twins can be found alive.

We all have that same hope.

Yes my friend, we have all the same hope.

Missing twins: chief Swiss investigator raises spectre of murder





Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Pascal Gilléron, chief investigator in canton Vaud in the case of missing twins Alessia and Livia Schepp, has told a Fribourg newspaper in an interview Friday that officials are now considering more closely the possibility that the six-year-old girls’ father killed them.

The children disappeared, with their father, 30 January from their village of St Sulpice near Lausanne, and while many of his steps have been traced, the thread for the girls’ movements was lost.

The three-country investigation will move back to Switzerland next week, he told La Liberté, to confirm information already gathered by police in Switzerland.

He added that it appears nearly certain the children were not killed in Switzerland. The chief investigator in France some weeks ago suggested the possibility that the father threw the girls overboard, off the ferry, between mainland France and Corsica.

The twins’ mother, Irina Lucidi Schepp, still holds out hope that her children are alive. She thanked supporters and volunteers in a new video Wednesday 23 March.



Link http://genevalunch.com/blog/2011/03/25/missing-twins-chief-swiss-investigator-raises-spectre-of-murder/

Thanks for the update zavvi...

Catkins wrote:

Thanks for the update zavvi...

Cat xx

Thank you Zavvi, let´s hope they are very soon found alive and well.

Excellent video.

Pedro Silva wrote:Thank you Zavvi, let´s hope they are very soon found alive and well.

Excellent video.

Heartbreaking Pedro....yes lets hope and pray they are soon found alive and well as you say....

Heartbreaking indeed, I agree with you Zavvi.

Missing-twins-all-trails-lead-to-nowhere-update

The first photos released by police and the family in early February, shortly after the twins were declared missing

Update 18:55 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Some 20 Swiss, French and Italian police met in Lausanne Wednesday afternoon 30 March with Swiss public prosecutor Pascal Gillerion to share their investigations into the disappearance of twins Alessia and Livia Schepp 30 January.

Despite intensive searches and knowing more details about the trail left by the father, police are still far from establishing the presence of the girls in several areas where the father is now known to have been.

One observer close to the investigations echoed the mood of the public in saying that “whether he did this intentionally or not, the scarcity of clues he left behind is astonishing.”

New details confirm father’s presence in many areas, but not that of his daughters

New details that have emerged, or been confirmed.

A key one that there is no forensic evidence of the presence of the girls on the ferryboat heading for Corsica, although there is a credible witness.
The presence of the girls in three Swiss towns and on the ferry has been confirmed only by witnesses, in contrast to the presence of the father in several locations, confirmed by video surveillance cameras.
French police have checked with every autoroute service station and hotels in the region around Montelimar, where he left the autoroute for the night, but have turned up no evidence of the girls’ presence or other useful details.
The GPS chip from the father’s car has to date provided no useful data, although Italian police are still waiting for a final report from the Korean supplier.

Thorough research into the father’s Internet contacts and telephone calls has provided no useful information.

Investigation will continue

Police say the investigation will continue, concentrating on France, in the Montelimar region and in Corsica, in particular trying to determine precisely the movements of the father, Matthias Schepp.

The three-country investigations up to now have confirmed the following path, and police say they hope the detailed route will help bring forward new witnesses. The joint statement issued by police notes the following:

The Swiss leg of the journey

The route taken by the father of the twins has now been largely worked out thanks to details provided by witnesses and technical details uncovered by investigators. His presence in St Sulpice 30 January around 13:00 (1:00 pm) has been confirmed, then in Préverenges (14:30 / 2:30 pm), Morges (15:51 / 3:51 pm), then Geneva (16:15-18:00 /4:15 pm to 6:00 pm). He was then in the Croix de Rozon region in France (18:04 / 6:04 pm) and Lyons (19:38 / 6:38 pm).

Mid-France to the ferry

He left the A7 autoroute at Montélimar Nord at 20:55 (8:55 pm) Sunday night, then got back on the autoroute at the same place the next morning at 08:44. He then went through the toll gate at Lançon in Provence at 09:55 and was seen in Marseille the same morning in a parking lot (11:30) and at a travel agency, at 12:45 in front of an ATM, bank teller machine, then again at the travel agency early in the afternoon (13:00 / 1:00 pm), where he bought three tickets for a ferry to Corsica.

The ferry to Corsica, the trail to Italy

He took the boat at 16:33 (4:33 pm), leaving Marseille at 18:35 to head to Propriano in Corsica, where he arrived the morning of Tuesday 1 February at 06:30. He was then seen in Bastia the same day at 15:57 (3:57 pm), where he bought a single ticket at 15:45 (3:45 pm). He took the 21:00 (9:00 pm) boat for Toulouse and arrived there Wednesday at 07:00 in the morning.

He then took the autoroute from Nice Capitou at 09:13, heading for Italy. The father of the twins was then seen in the village of Vietri sul Mare, near Naples, shortly before noon Thursday 3 February. He was then in Cerignola at 20:00 (8:00 pm) where he ended his life at 22:47 (10:47 pm).

The father’s presence has been confirmed by a number of video images from surveillance cameras. The presence of the girls, however, has been confirmed only by witnesses: in St Sulpice, Préverenges, Geneva, on the boat between Marseille and Propriano and in Corsica. The images captured in Nice Capitou the Wednesday morning show that Alessia and Livia were not visibly inside their father’s car.

The cost of the investigations has not been a factor in deciding on what procedures to use, Gillerion noted, responding indirectly to accusations by the maternal grandfather of the girls earlier this week.

POSTED BY :: ELLEN WALLACE ON 30 MARCH 2011 AT 18:48


Link http://genevalunch.com/blog/2011/03/30/missing-twins-all-trails-lead-to-nowhere-update/

They are so cute - I can't imagine why someone should hurt them, especially their father. Their mother must be devastated. What lengths people will go to to hurt a person they once loved. Perhaps he knew someone in Corsica that would take good care of them, the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. I hope they will be found safe and well soon.

No video surveillance shows the twins on the ferry or in Corsica but witnesses say they were on both. But since he bought a single ticket the morning after landing, did the girls ever get off the ferry? I hope so, and I hope that sighting in Corsica is correct.

This means they are on Corsica, but I suspect that there were no longer alive by the time their father bought that next ticket. Sad as it is, it is my belief there will be no happy ending. I hate to speculate about this, as it causes pain to the family, but I fear the worst.


My heart goes out to the twin's mother. This is tragic.

I agree with you dianeh.
That poor mother, no closure, not knowing what's happened to her children.

I agree, it is sad indeed.