Disappearance of Alessia and Livia Schepp

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

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 12 years, 8 months and 26 days
Parents
  • Mathias Schepp (father)
  • Irina Lucidi (mother)

Background

Alessia and Livia were twin sisters, born on October 7, 2004.[2] The girls were 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] They married in July 2004 in Ascoli Piceno, Italy.[5] They both worked for the tobacco company Philip Morris.

One year previously the couple had split up, living in the same village, but in separate homes.

Timeline

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
    • at 12:00: The girls are seen for the last time with Schepp in Saint-Sulpice, Vaud.
    • at 17:04: Schepp crosses the border into France.
  • 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 throws himself under a train at Cerignola, in the south-east Italian region of Apulia.[7]

Possible murder by Matthias Schepp

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

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

References
  1. "Police in three countries hunt for missing Swiss twins Alessia and Livia Schepp". www.telegraph.co.uk. 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. "Gemelle scomparse, i genitori molto legati ad Ascoli". il Resto Del Carlino (in Italian). Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  6. "Alessia et Livia, les jumelles de St-Sulpice (VD) qui ont disparu". 20 Minutes (in French). Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  7. "A un mes de su desaparción, 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. Retrieved 2023-02-14.
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