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- From: AFP
- February 06, 2011
Missing twins Alessia and Livia Schepp are being sought in three countries. AFP Photo / Police Cantonale Vaudoise Source: AFP
POLICE in three countries are hunting for six-year-old twin girls after their father who had snatched them from their home in Switzerland threw himself under an Italian train, reports said today.
Italy's ANSA news agency said helicopters, mounted police and tracker dogs were searching around Cerignola in the southern region of Puglia for Alessia and Livia Schepp.
Their father Matthias, 43, committed suicide at Cerignola station yesterday.
Separated from his wife Irina, 44, he had snatched the twins from their home in western Switzerland last month and driven them away in her stolen car.
Switzerland's ATS news agency said some 30 police had been mobilised in that country, and two inspectors had arrived in Italy.
They would be helping in the hunt and taking the father's body for formal identification.
ATS quoted a police spokesman as saying that two other policemen had gone to Marseille in southern France to follow up further leads.
The children's mother, who is of Italian origin, went to French police in Marseille, from where her husband had sent her a postcard on January 31, the day after he took the children.
He had said he was desperate and could not live without her.
Swiss police said he had drawn large sums of money out of cash machines in Marseille.
An earlier appeal for witnesses said "all the police in Europe'' were on the lookout for the father and the two girls, and an investigator said they feared the worst.
Italian volenteers look at a map of the region in search of twin six-year-old girls, Alessia and Livia Schepp, outside Cerignola Station, southern Italy on Febraury 5, 2011.
Photograph by: Giovanni Marino, AFP/Getty Images
Police in Europe are desperately hunting for six-year-old twin girls after their Canadian-born father — who snatched them from their mother — threw himself under a train in Italy.
Matthias Schepp, 43, killed himself Friday, nearly a week after he took his daughters, Alessia and Livia, from their home in Switzerland, where the twins were living with their mother, Irina Lucidi, 44.
The couple had been separated. A police press release said Schepp left his home in St-Sulprice, Switzerland due to "personal problems" on Jan. 30, taking the twins with him.
Swiss police told Postmedia News that Schepp was born in Canada, but that he and his daughters hold Swiss citizenship.
Schepp jumped in front of a high-speed train a few kilometres from Cerignola station, where police found Lucidi's car — which Schepp had stolen when he took the kids according to reports from Agence France-Presse.
The trio spent time in Marseille, France before Schepp's body was found in Italy on Feb. 3, according to Swiss police.
The girls remain missing with police in Italy, Switzerland and France searching for them and calling on the public for information.
Teams are using helicopters and tracker dogs in the search around Cerignola in the southern region of Puglia.
Meanwhile in Switzerland, about 30 police had been assigned to the search, and two officers have gone to Marseille in southern France to follow up leads, AFP reported.
A Facebook group set up to find the girls confirmed the suicide and pleas to find the girls are still being made through the site.
"To our friends — Matthias' body was found in Cerignola . . . south of Italy. We are hoping and praying that the girls are safe. We need your help around Ascoli in South Italy to be on the look out and help us find these precious girls," says a post from Friday.
The page was updated again on Saturday, with the desperate message: "DON'T STOP LOOKING FOR ALESSIA & LIVIA — STILL MISSING."
Lucidi reported the twins missing after her estranged husband sent her a postcard on Jan. 31, a day after he took the children. He had said he was desperate and could not live without her.
The twins both are 115-centimetres tall with blond hair and eyeglasses.
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