Liechtenstein police announced Thursday that the two men and two women found dead a day earlier in one of the greatest mysteries to strike the tiny principality in years were all members of the same family, as investigators continue examining the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
Media reports say authorities suspect a triple murder followed by suicide, a shocking scenario in a country where even a single homicide in a year is usually considered one too many.
The unusual case began on Wednesday, Christmas Eve, when pedestrians walking along the Swiss side of the Rhine River at around 10:30 a.m. discovered a body near a bridge linking the Swiss town of Sevelen with Liechtenstein’s
capital, Vaduz. Emergency services were called, and it was soon confirmed that the deceased was a 41-year-old Liechtenstein citizen.
When police arrived at his home, they discovered the bodies of his 73-year-old father, his 68-year-old mother and his 45-year-old sister inside the apartment. All four bodies were transferred for autopsies to determine the exact causes of death.
Investigators said the man found near the river was a senior employee at the local authority in Triesen, south of Vaduz, who had been suspended from his job several days earlier following irregularities uncovered in financial accounts. According to reports, 71,000 Swiss francs were missing from the records, and his employment was terminated on December 18.
The deaths mark an exceptionally rare event in Liechtenstein, an Alpine enclave between Austria and Switzerland covering about 160 square kilometers and home to just 41,000 residents.
Liechtenstein is considered one of the safest countries in the world. It has no standing army, and most cases handled by local police involve traffic violations and occasional burglaries. In many years, the country ends the calendar year without a single recorded murder. As a result, when a killing does occur, and especially in the case of a suspected triple murder, it becomes a major national shock.
The most notorious murder in Liechtenstein in recent decades took place in 2014, when Jürgen Frick, the CEO of Bank Frick, was shot dead in the bank’s underground parking garage by Jürgen Hermann.
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'Catch me if you can': the killer who claimed to be Liechtenstein’s 'Robin Hood', Jürgen Hermann
Hermann, an engineer and investor who had been embroiled in a long-running dispute with the bank, claimed it had caused him massive financial losses. He alleged that an “economic mafia” controlled Liechtenstein and ran a website in which he portrayed himself as the principality’s “Robin Hood.”
After killing Frick, Hermann replaced the entire content of his website with the message, “Catch me if you can, dead or alive, and receive 200,000,000 Swiss francs.” He fled and was later found dead in Germany, apparently after taking his own life.