Four people died after jumping from a seventh-floor apartment balcony in Switzerland.
Four people are dead after a group of five reportedly jumped in unison from a seventh-floor apartment balcony around 7 am Thursday in the Swiss resort town of Montreux on the banks of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
The dead include a man in his 40’s, his wife and her twin sister, 41, and their eight-year-old daughter. The couple’s 15-year-old son survived the fall and formal identification is now underway.
Police said the victims were all French citizens. Unconfirmed reports in Swiss media, citing an unidentified police official, claimed the five had jumped from their apartment building.
The group was found outside a building near the city’s Casino Barriere. Police said officers had gone to the apartment with a warrant for the father related to the home-schooling of one of the two children.
Authorities said: “Five people were found at the foot of a building, one of the five victims has been hospitalized and in serious condition, the four others are dead.”
Alexandre Bisenz, the police spokesperson, told the 20 Minutes newspaper that the five people appeared to have jumped from their apartment, near the town’s lakeside casino, for reasons unknown.
Forensic teams are now investigating the balcony of the seventh-floor apartment where they jumped from. The Mail Online reported that a neighbor described a quiet family of two adults in their forties, two teenagers, and a grandmother living there.
Claude Rouiller, the family’s neighbor, said: “We heard nothing from their home, the father never said hello in the hallway and ordered many packages almost daily. There had been a strong smell of incense coming from the family’s apartment for the past few days.”
One neighbor who saw the bodies on the pavement told the paper that many people in the building thought the family belonged to a cult. Another resident who lives on the first floor of the building said that they heard a “thud” around 7:00 am on Thursday morning.
The neighbors, who wished to remain anonymous, said they went outside to investigate the noise and saw five bodies. Around 30 police officers were at the scene and white forensic tents had been set up in front of the building.
According to local media, forensic police are combing the apartment for clues about what led to the horrific tragedy, including whether anyone else could have been in the apartment leading up to the incident.
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