Featured Image Credit: TF1/Google Maps
Topics: Crime, Police, Conspiracy Theories
Dominic Smithers
A conspiracy theorist mother led her family to their death as they jumped from their apartment balcony.
In March 2022, Éric David, 40, wife, Nasrine Feraoun, 41, her twin sister, Narjisse Feraoun, and the couple's two children, an eight-year-old girl, and son, Allan, 15, jumped 25 metres from their home in Montreux, Switzerland.
On the morning of the tragic incident, police called round to the apartment after Mr David failed to respond to several letters about home schooling his teenage son.
Officers arrived at about 6.15am, and knocked on the door, after which a voice came back asking who they were, before the room went silent.
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Police then left, and shortly after 7am, the family jumped from their flat.
Only Allan survived the fall, though has no memory of the incident since waking from a coma.
A police investigation found no sign of struggle, and an autopsy of the deceased found no traces of drugs in their system.
A stepladder was recovered from the balcony, which the family, who moved to the area from France two years before their death, is said to have used to get over the railings.
Witnesses also claim that the family didn't scream after jumping off.
A year since the investigation was opened, police have concluded that it was a joint suicide.
"Before or during the events, no witnesses, including the two police officers present on the spot from 6:15 am and the passers-by at the foot of the building, heard the slightest noise or cry coming from the apartment or the balcony," police said.
"Technical investigations show no warning signs of such an act.
"All these elements suggest... fear of the authorities interfering in their lives," police said in a statement.
It was noted that 'since the start of the pandemic, the family had become very interested in conspiracy and survivalist theories'.
Police believe that Ms Feraoun and her sister, who were deeply suspicious of local authorities and the government.
Only the mother's sister worked outside of the home, and neither Ms Feraoun, who was a dentist, nor her young daughter were registered with the local authorities.
It's believed that the siblings were key to the family taking the decision to jump from the balcony.
And analysis of the the family's electronic devices showed that it was meticulously planned.
The public prosecutor in the canton of Vaud also said that the "mother and sister had dominant and possessive personalities, which contrasted with a timid father" and that they had a a strong domination of the children and kept them in the belief that the world was hostile to them".