The Police in Switzerland says four adults and a child have died and a teenager was seriously injured after they reportedly fall off from a building in Montreux on Thursday.
According to the report by AFP, the Police had shown up at the door of the family home moments before the fall. The father of the family was the subject of an arrest warrant after inconsistencies were noted in the schooling of his children.
It is early this Thursday when the police of the Canton of Vaud, in Switzerland, received an alarming call. A witness tells them that the bodies of five people are lying on the asphalt, close to the Montreux casino. This Swiss town of 26,000 inhabitants, bordered by Lake Geneva, is renowned for its relaxed lifestyle and its music festival. Not for the dramas that unfold there.
Of the five people found on the ground of Montreux building, all of them are of French nationality, four died. The fifth, a 15-year-old boy, was airlifted in critical condition. They all fell from the seventh floor of their apartment and were members of the same family.
Accidental fall or collective family suicide? The investigation must determine it. But the information that has been transmitted since Thursday morning makes it possible to trace part of the unfolding of this drama, and better understand the profile of the family.
The report by AFP also reported that in the hours following the discovery of the bodies, Vaud police revealed that officers had arrived at the family’s home just before his fall. At 6:15 a.m. precisely. The police had in their possession an arrest warrant issued by the prefecture, concerning the father of the family.
In French law as in Swiss law, an arrest warrant is issued by a criminal authority, which asks the police to come and present the person targeted by the procedure.
“The gendarmes, in front of the door, did not have an answer at first. Then a person asked them who they were. They legitimized themselves, indicated that it was about the police, and afterwards, there was no more response. They were not in a situation where they had to force the door, so they left the premises. In this kind of situation, that does not justify making a forced opening”, has indicated at the microphone of Radio Télé Suisse (RTS) Jean-Christophe Sauterel, spokesman for the Vaud cantonal police.
The fall occurred just after the intervention of the police. Proof of this is that the police were still in the building when the sirens of the ambulance, alerted by the call of a witness who discovered the bodies, sounded. It was 7 o’clock.
Of the five people who fell, four died. The 40-year-old father, his 41-year-old wife, her twin sister, and their 8-year-old daughter. Their 15-year-old son survived but is in serious condition. . He was airlifted.
“I was in my kitchen, it was almost 7 a.m. when I heard strange noises and screams. I saw five bodies about ten meters from the building. Three on one side, two on another “, tells the Tribune de Genève a neighbour.
The building from which the family fell is located in an upscale district of Montreux, avenue du Casino, at the intersection with rue Igor-Stravinsky.
It was not until the beginning of the afternoon that the media were informed that they were French nationals.
They had been settled in the Swiss Confederation for several years. With our colleagues from the Tribune de Genève , the occupants of the building described them as “discreet”, even if several related rumours of belonging to a sect.
“I saw them two or three times. They had trouble saying hello. But I never heard a fight, and yet this old building is rather poorly insulated,” said one of the interviewees. Also according to the neighbours, the father worked at home, dressed in shorts “summer and winter”.
Also, the report by AFP stated that two twin sisters, aged 41, both doctors, according to information from the Geneva daily.
The mother was a dentist. Before moving to Switzerland, she set up on her own in the northwest of Paris in 2008. In 2015, the Swiss canton of Friborg withdrew her authorization to practice, as indicated by the Swiss register of doctors.
As for his sister, it was a brilliant ophthalmologist, specializing in inflammatory diseases of the eye, as revealed by Le Parisien . She was head of clinic at the University Hospitals of Geneva, before joining the eye clinic in Sion. She would have since settled in Morges, a town located about forty kilometers from Montreux.
The Tribune de Genève also noted that the two sisters had created in 2011 a civil real estate company in the Paris area. At the given address there is now a veterinary clinic. Contacted, the occupants acknowledged that the two sisters were the owners of the place.
At the origin of the arrest warrant concerning the father of the family, doubts relating to the schooling of the two children. A local police source told RMC that anomalies had been observed in the school curriculum of the children.
The 8-year-old girl was thus not registered in any school course. His older brother was home schooled. It had been several months since the parents had reported on the progress of their son, leading to the procedure for which the gendarmes went to the family home on Thursday morning.
The police point out that it is still too early to determine if the fall is due to accidental causes or if it is a voluntary gesture. An investigation was opened, entrusted to the investigators of the security police.
The police have for the moment dismissed the track relating to the presence of another person in the apartment at the time of the tragedy. She now endeavors to draw up the profile of the family, to try to pierce this tragedy which has left four dead.