Irina Lucidi with her daughters Alessia and Livia
SAINT SULPICE, SWITZERLAND – It is expected that on 7 October, Irina Lucidi, the mother of the Swiss twins Alessia and Livia Schepp who dissappeared on 30 January, will launch a project aimed to quickly alert the public and authorities of missing children.
According to the Facebook page created by the family, the launch of the project will take place on the girls’ birthday.
“We wish to inform the FB community that on October 7th, the day of Alessia and Livia’s seventh birthday, Irina Lucidi will present a relevant new project linked to the disappearance of minors.
Such project, to which her brother Valerio, her family and close friends have dedicated all of themselves in the last three months, will be activated and developed in parallel and with a cooperative approach to all foundations and institutions already operating in the same domain and that are helped with the specific case of Alessia and Livia.
Regarding Alessia and Livia’s case, investigations are ongoing in the three countries involved, but there are no news or relevant elements at all”
Police spokesperson Jean-Christophe Sautere has said that Valerio Lucidi has been “a buffer between the immediate family and the world’s media. He’s a doctor and he’s got strong shoulders – the family is very lucky to have him there.”
Matthias Schepp who kidnapped his daughters, took his own life in Italy on 3 February. Earlier that day, he sent a letter to his wife which arrived five days later in Switzerland, to say that he had killed their two six-year-old girls.
The mother has said that she believes, in her mother’s heart, that the girls are still alive and has begged for people to continue looking for them. She has also said that several riddles or mysteries remain in the case.
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Boiron beach, between St Prex and Tolochenaz, Switzerland: site of 2-day search for missing girls
Geneva / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Vaud say a large-scale two-day search for missing twins Alessia and Livia is over, with nothing found. The search, using 11 dogs from three countries, specially trained to search for dead bodies, turned up no trace of the girls or their father. “The search did not provide any new material for the investigation,” noted police spokesperson Jean-Christophe Sauterel in a statement issued late Friday.
The search for the missing children will continue in Switzerland, France and Italy.
It was prompted by new information offered by a witness 6 April, who told police he saw a man dragging a suitcase Sunday 30 January about 16:00, in the Boiron area.
Some 100 potential witnesses in the area were interviewed over the two days, says Sauterel, people who live or work in the area, including employees at dumps, fishermen and people who use the shooting range near the Boiron beach, site of the dog-tracking search.
The search involved more than 200 people, including 150 from the area’s Civil Protection unit alone, with dog handlers and their animals covering an area approximately 2.3 kilometres long and 150-400 metres wide on land.
The lake search involved Lake Brigade police from Vaud and Geneva who carried out what police call “a minutieuse search around the mouth of the Boiron river and the lake zone, an area 300 metres wide and 700 metres long, starting from the mouth of the Boiron.” They used remote-controlled robots, or vehicles, and multibeam echo lasers, multibeam swath bathymetry, a sophisticated system for underwater searches.
The entire area was blocked off, with police stationed every 100 metres along the lake road between St Prex’s eastern edge and the Tolochenaz roundabout, and red and white tape keeping out the public to allow the investigators to work in peace. Police boats kept other boats away just off the shore.
Irina Lucidi with her daughters Livia and Alessia, from her Facebook page, Missing Alessia and Livia
Mother says family took walks in searched area
Irina Lucidi, the mother of missing six-year-old twins Alessia and Livia Schepp, called a press conference Friday afternoon 15 April in Morges to thank police for undertaking a large-scale hunt for her daughters, who disappeared with their father from St Sulpice 30 January.
Matthias Schepp, the father of the girls, committed suicide five days after leaving with his daughters, driving to the south of France, Corsica and southern Italy. Police in Italy, France and Switzerland have been looking for the children since then; the father sent his wife a letter from Italy saying that he had killed them.
Irina Lucidi had told him a few days before he left with the children that their marriage was over and she wanted a divorce.
Her press conference was held at the tennis club on the west side of Morges, not far from the area where police have been carrying out an intensive dog-tracking search for the past two days, based on new information provided 6 April by a witness. Police searched the Boiron river mouth and beach area, where the witness says he saw a man dragging a suitcase Sunday 30 January, about 16:00.
Irina Lucidi told reporters Friday afternoon that she and her husband and the girls often walked in that area, just to the east of St Prex, near the lake road at Tolochenaz. The lakefront is not open to the public between St Prex and the beach, but from the beach it is possible to walk to Morges, about 3 kms.
Police say that concerning the possible death of the twins, investigators remain open to all possibilities.
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Alessia and Livia Schepp, missing Swiss twins, in the summer of 2010
Mother flies over Corsican coast with police
Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The mother of missing twins Alessia and Livia Schepp flew to Corsica in a private plane Saturday 13 February to help with the investigation there. Shortly after her arrival she flew over several of the island’s beach areas with two Swiss police inspectors and a French police team, reports TF1, French television.
She gave a press conference, looking exhausted, at the end of the flight, saying that the day had been long and fatiguing but that she still hopes her daughters are alive, and given that they were seen on Corsica, she appealed again to the public to provide police with leads.
TF1 ran a lengthy report Saturday morning on the French police investigation.
The two Swiss investigators sent to Corsica, with their French counterparts, used helicopters to check two beaches in the Porto Vecchio area Saturday, for three hours: Santa Giulia and Palombaggia, reports TF1. The request to check the beaches came from Swiss police.
Girls may have been seen with father and 45-yr-old woman on Corsica
Several French media report Saturday that, according to “a person close to the investigation”, which generally signifies a police leak in France, a witness who identified the father and two daughters 1 February in Propriano, Corsica, is being taken seriously by police there.
The woman, Olga Omeck, says she saw the twins eating croissants or pains au chocolat, then walking ahead of the pair, who were discussing something, as if they knew each other.
The woman appeared to be about age 45, with chestnut coloured hair with light streaks.
Search based in northern Corsica
Italian news agency Ansa said Saturday morning that police are basing their activities in Macinaggio, at the northern tip of Corsica, as they try to reconstruct the father’s flight.
French police provided no further details except to say that they are trying to locate all the places on the island that may have been known to the father, Matthias, from previous professional trips but also visits there with his wife.
Italian police hunt for GPS
Italian police said Saturday they have stepped up the search for the GPS used by the father, Matthias Schepp, given the possibility that he may have thrown it away shortly before committing suicide in the south of Italy, throwing himself in front of a train.
The GPS navigation system could provide valuable clues about where he drove, in Corsica and/or in Italy.
Matthias Schepp took his own life in Italy 3 February and sent a letter to his wife, Irina Lucidi Schepp that day, which arrived five days later in Switzerland, to say that he had killed their two six-year-old twins.
The mother was interviewed by news agency Ansa Friday and she said that she believes, in her mother’s heart, that the girls are still alive. She begged for people to continue looking for them.
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