Conspiracy theorist mother led husband, sister and children to leap to deaths from their apartment

A mother who believed in conspiracy theories convinced her husband, sister and children to jump to their deaths from their seventh floor apartment, after the pandemic and the Ukraine war led them to believe the world was not worth living in. 

Nasrine Feraoun, 41, her twin sister Narjisse, her husband Eric David, 40, and their daughter, eight, died after the fall from the balcony of their apartment in Montreux, Switzerland. Only their then 15-year-old son survived.

He was in a coma but has since recovered from his serious injuries, with no memory of the events of March 24 last year, according to investigators.

Forensic evidence revealed no sign of a struggle before the deaths, and autopsies showed no trace of drugs. Witnesses revealed none of the family screamed after falling off the balcony, which police attributed to their collective suicide theory. 

Swiss authorities said the mother, and her sister, were deeply involved in survivalist and conspiracy theories. 

The case will now be closed, police have announced a year after the collective suicide attempt.

There was no outside intervention and the adults, who had moved to Switzerland from France just two years earlier, had given no indication that they were considering taking their own lives, officers said.  

The coroner’s report as well as nearby security footage supports the suicide-theory by detectives. Additionally, there was a stepladder on the balcony helping the family step over the railing but no signs of a struggle, according to Swiss broadcaster SRF. 

Their apartment was full of food, medicines, hygiene materials – all stocked and organised, according to police who entered. 

The family was isolated, hardly went out and home-schooled the two children. The mother and her twin were suspicious of the government and local authorities. 

They were convinced that the world was a hostile place, and led their children to believe the same. The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine only supported this belief, investigators said. 

Their collective suicide was carefully planned, rehearsed even, and the family waited for the right moment to ‘move to a better world’, police revealed after searching the apartment and their electronic devices. 

It reportedly came after a welfare visit from Montreux police, after the father failed to reply to several letters regarding the home-schooling of one of his children.

On March 24 last year, two officers arrived at the apartment at 6.15am to execute a warrant for the father in connection with the home-schooling of the son, now 16, who police appealed for privacy for as the only surviving member of the family.

The officers knocked on the door and heard a voice ask who they were. But when they answered, the apartment went quiet. After failing to make contact, the officers left.   

Shortly before 7am, all five family members jumped from the balcony within the space of five minutes.

‘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,’ they added, noting however that ‘since the start of the pandemic, the family was very interested in conspiracy and survivalist theories’.

Only the mother’s twin sister worked outside the home, while neither the mother nor the eight-year-old girl, who did not attend school, were registered with the local authorities.

‘All these elements suggest… fear of the authorities interfering in their lives,’ the police statement said. 

Neighbours said the family was quiet and kept to themselves. 

France’s Journal du Dimanche newspaper said the father, Eric David, grew up in a wealthy part of Marseille and attended the Ecole Polytechnique, one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

The twin sisters, Nasrine and Narjisse Feraoun, grew up in a family of five children who were all educated at the elite Lycee Henri-IV in Paris, the weekly said. The mother was a dentist and her sister an ophthalmologist.

Montreux, a bucolic lakeside city in Switzerland where the shocking collective suicide took place, is best known as a tourist hot spot and in particular for its annual jazz festival. 

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