Disappearance of Alessia and Livia Schepp

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Alessia Schepp, Livia Schepp
Born
Alessia Vera Schepp, Livia Clara Schepp

(2004-10-07)October 7, 2004
Saint-Sulpice
DisappearedJanuary 30, 2011 (aged 6)
Switzerland
StatusMissing for 13 years, 3 months and 1 day
Parents
  • Mathias Schepp (father)
  • Irina Lucidi (mother)

Alessia Vera Schepp and Livia Clara Schepp are twin sisters from Saint-Sulpice, a suburb of Lausanne in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland who were last seen on January 30, 2011. Matthias Schepp, their father, picked up his twin daughters from his ex-wife's home in St-Sulpice; they never returned. The body of Matthias was later found in Italy, where the authorities presumed that he had committed suicide.[1] The disappearance of the six-year-old girls led to an unsuccessful police hunt across Switzerland, France and Italy.[1]

Background[edit]

Alessia and Livia were twin sisters, born on October 7, 2004,[2] the only children of Irina Mayme Lucidi Schepp, an Italian-born Swiss lawyer,[3][4] and Matthias Kaspar Schepp, 43, a Canadian-born Swiss engineer.[5] The parents married in July 2004 in Ascoli Piceno, Italy,[5] where they both worked for the tobacco company Philip Morris.[citation needed]

A year before the girls disappeared the couple had split up, living in separate homes the same village.[citation needed]

Timeline[edit]

The following timeline is based on a Swiss Police publication:[6]

  • Friday 28 January: Matthias Schepp picks up his daughters to spend the weekend with them.
  • Saturday 29 January: Schepp sends an SMS to his wife: "we are all right, we'll return on Monday".
  • Sunday 30 January
  • Monday 31 January
    • at 12:30: Schepp withdraws money from several cashpoints in Marseille.
    • Schepp sends a postcard to his wife from Marseille.
    • Schepp and the girls take an evening ferry to Propriano, in Corsica.
  • Tuesday 1 February
    • at 06:30: Schepp disembarks in Propriano, with or without his daughters.
    • at 21:00: Schepp takes a ferry from Bastia in northeast Corsica and arrives at Toulon the next morning at 07:00.
  • Wednesday 2 February at 09:13: Schepp is photographed alone at a toll.
  • Thursday 3 February
    • at 12:00: Schepp is observed by a witness in Naples, Italy.
    • at 22:47: Schepp threw himself under a train at Cerignola, in the south-east Italian region of Apulia.[7]

Possible murder by Matthias Schepp[edit]

In February 2011 police investigators said that Schepp sent a letter to his wife suggesting that he had killed the children. The letter was not released to the public. According to CNN, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera was allowed to publish a single sentence from the letters which said "The children rest in peace, they have not suffered". A search of Schepp's computer showed that in the days leading up to the trip, he searched for information about firearms and poisons, along with the timetables for the ferry.[8]

Novelization[edit]

In 2015, Italian journalist and writer Concita De Gregorio published a novel, Mi sa che fuori è primavera, based on the girls' disappearance, written from the point of view of Irina Lucidi. De Gregorio received a Brancati Prize for the book in 2016.[9] It was published in English in 2022 as The Missing Word.[10]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Police in three countries hunt for missing Swiss twins Alessia and Livia Schepp". www.telegraph.co.uk. 7 February 2011. Retrieved 2023-02-07.
  2. ^ "Campagne d'affichage 2011". APEV (in French). Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  3. ^ "New search for missing Swiss twin girls". Herald Sun (in Italian). 2011-04-14. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  4. ^ "La follia di Matthias, l'amore finito con Irina e le due gemelline uccise". Il Sole 24 Ore (in Italian). Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  5. ^ a b "Gemelle scomparse, i genitori molto legati ad Ascoli". il Resto Del Carlino (in Italian). 12 February 2011. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  6. ^ "Alessia et Livia, les jumelles de St-Sulpice (VD) qui ont disparu". 20 Minutes (in French). 15 March 2011. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  7. ^ "A un mes de su desaparición, el drama de las gemelas suizas sacude a europa" (in Mexican Spanish). 2012-04-25. Archived from the original on 2012-04-25. Retrieved 2023-02-14.
  8. ^ CNN Wire Staff (11 Feb 2011). "Father's letter claims he killed missing Swiss girls, police say". CNN. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  9. ^ SicilyMag, Redazione (2016-09-15). "Premio Vitaliano Brancati: tra i premiati anche Concita De Gregorio, la consegna il 24 settembre". SicilyMag (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-02-14.
  10. ^ "BookDragon | The Missing Word by Concita De Gregorio, translated by Clarissa Botsford". smithsonianapa.org. 4 August 2022. Retrieved 2023-02-14.

External links[edit]

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