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Girl, 4, hid under bodies of murdered mom, gran
Source: AFP |
September 7, 2012, Friday
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THE four-year-old survivor of a deadly shooting in France lay undiscovered for hours in a car in which her mother, father and grandmother died.
The girl emerged physically unscathed from the family car eight hours after three members of her family and another man were found slain in the French Alps near the village of Chevaline.
She had hidden in the backseat under the bodies of her mother and grandmother and was not spotted by a British cyclist who was first on the scene at 4pm on Wednesday or by firefighters and police who arrived shortly after.
A psychiatrist said the terrifying situation could have induced the girl into a total physical and psychological shutdown that would have ensured she barely moved or made a sound throughout the eight hours.
"We had instructions not to enter the car and not to move the bodies," said Lieutenant-Colonel Benoit Vinnemann of the local gendarmerie.
The instructions were issued pending the arrival of a gendarmerie team of forensic experts. The elite IRCGN team, based near Paris, did not arrive until nearly midnight.
Three of the four people killed in the mystery shooting were shot in the head in what the prosecutor in charge of the case called an act of "extreme savagery."
Extreme savagery
Eric Maillaud said he could not say whether the attack had the hallmarks of a professional assassination.
But he added: "It was clearly an act of extreme savagery and it was obvious that whoever did this wanted to kill."
Maillaud revealed that the elder of the two sisters who survived the shooting was found outside the car. She had been placed in an induced coma ahead of further surgery in a Grenoble hospital.
She had been shot in the shoulder and suffered multiple and "extremely violent" blows to the head.
The BMW estate car in which three of the four people killed were found was registered in Britain.
The fourth victim, a cyclist who arrived at the scene by chance, was named as Sylvain Mollier, a local father.
Police sources said the car belonged to Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old born in Iraq but resident in Surrey in the southeast of England.
The elder of two women found in the back seat was identified as a Swedish passport holder. A younger woman, thought to be al-Hilli's wife, was carrying an Iraqi passport.
The family had been staying at the Saint Jorioz camp site. Fellow campers reported their disappearance on Wednesday evening.
The girl emerged physically unscathed from the family car eight hours after three members of her family and another man were found slain in the French Alps near the village of Chevaline.
She had hidden in the backseat under the bodies of her mother and grandmother and was not spotted by a British cyclist who was first on the scene at 4pm on Wednesday or by firefighters and police who arrived shortly after.
A psychiatrist said the terrifying situation could have induced the girl into a total physical and psychological shutdown that would have ensured she barely moved or made a sound throughout the eight hours.
"We had instructions not to enter the car and not to move the bodies," said Lieutenant-Colonel Benoit Vinnemann of the local gendarmerie.
The instructions were issued pending the arrival of a gendarmerie team of forensic experts. The elite IRCGN team, based near Paris, did not arrive until nearly midnight.
Three of the four people killed in the mystery shooting were shot in the head in what the prosecutor in charge of the case called an act of "extreme savagery."
Extreme savagery
Eric Maillaud said he could not say whether the attack had the hallmarks of a professional assassination.
But he added: "It was clearly an act of extreme savagery and it was obvious that whoever did this wanted to kill."
Maillaud revealed that the elder of the two sisters who survived the shooting was found outside the car. She had been placed in an induced coma ahead of further surgery in a Grenoble hospital.
She had been shot in the shoulder and suffered multiple and "extremely violent" blows to the head.
The BMW estate car in which three of the four people killed were found was registered in Britain.
The fourth victim, a cyclist who arrived at the scene by chance, was named as Sylvain Mollier, a local father.
Police sources said the car belonged to Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old born in Iraq but resident in Surrey in the southeast of England.
The elder of two women found in the back seat was identified as a Swedish passport holder. A younger woman, thought to be al-Hilli's wife, was carrying an Iraqi passport.
The family had been staying at the Saint Jorioz camp site. Fellow campers reported their disappearance on Wednesday evening.
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