Now no hope of finding twins alive, say family as letter tells of murder

Matthias Kaspar Schepp wrote in a letter from Italy on 3 February that six-year-olds Alessia and Livia were dead and he would now kill himself, and his body was found later that day, police from the Swiss canton (state) of Vaud said.

Police say Schepp threw himself under a train in the southern Italian city of Cerignola. His letter did not say when or where he killed his children. The girls were reported missing by their mother 30 January when her husband didn't return them to her home in Saint-Sulpice, part of Lausanne, Switzerland.

"The father declared he had killed his two daughters and he was in Cerignola where he was going to kill himself," police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel said.

Police said earlier that Schepp, 43, had used his work computer to trawl the web for information on guns, poisons and suicide.

Roberto Mestichelli, a cousin of Irina Lucidi, the twins' mother, said the family was devastated.

"There was never a thread of hope. There is no hope" of finding the girls alive, he said.

Schepp sent eight letters postmarked from Bari, Italy, to his wife in Switzerland, police said last night. Seven contained ?€4,400 in ?€50 notes. In the eighth letter, he said he killed the girls and would kill himself. It is not clear when police and the family found out about the letters - the girls' mother went before TV cameras on Wednesday to say there was new hope after police determined the girls were on the ferry to Corsica.

Italian police found two more envelopes with €1,500 that Schepp tried to send his wife, but put in unused mailboxes.

Investigators in Switzerland, France and Italy continued their search for the twins, focusing on Corsica, where Schepp took the girls by night ferry from Marseilles, France, arriving on 1 February. French police say Schepp left Corsica alone later that day on a ferry to Toulon, France.

On Corsica, investigators were searching the city of Propriano, where the ferry arrived from Marseilles, the towns of Macinaggio and Calvi and spots where the family had vacationed together in happier times. They were flying over in helicopters, checking hotels and camping spots and interviewing people, Ajaccio police said, but had turned up nothing so far.

In Marseilles, police have been checking pharmacies to find out whether Schepp may have bought sleeping pills or other drugs for use on his daughters, the prosecutor's office said.Checks on about 30 hotels turned up no sign of them.

It was reported that Schepp's deadly plan was also contained in a will he left in his home in Saint-Sulpice, an affluent community on Lake Geneva. Swiss police said he wrote the will on 27 January.

Schepp's family yesterday said he must have had a breakdown. The family in Ettingen, near Basel, said Schepp was a loving and caring father whose family meant everything to him. "Our son and brother could only have committed such terrible acts if he suffered a serious emotional breakdown," they said.

Timeline

28 January: Matthias Kaspar Schepp picks up his daughters, Alessia and Livia, for the weekend in their home village of Saint- Sulpice.

30 January: The twins are last seen with their father in Saint-Sulpice. Later that day, Schepp crosses the border into France.

31 January: From Marseille, Schepp sends a postcard to his wife, Irina Lucidi, from Marseille. Later that day, he and the girls take a ferry to Propriano, Corsica

1 February: Schepp disembarks in Propriano. It is unclear whether the girls were with him. He subsequently leaves Corsica for the southern Italian city of Naples.

3 February: Schepp throws himself under a train in Cerignola, in the south of Italy.