A full-scale search for a murder suspect has turned into a post-mortem probe into why a 41-year-old man living at Mortensrud in Oslo killed his wife, their newborn baby daughter and their two other daughters before killing himself. His body was found during the night, along with that of the third missing daughter.
“We know very little about what has gone on here and it will be difficult to be 100 percent sure how this (the murders and suicide) unfolded, since the murder suspect is also dead,” police inspector Hanne Kristin Rohde told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) Thursday morning.
Rohde said police were in “a tight dialogue” with experts from Norway’s institute for forensic medicine, and hoped they could come up with a preliminary autopsy report during the day.
“We will also have meetings with the family’s relatives, they need many meetings with the police in such a dramatic situation,” Rohde said.
First body found in Oppegård
The tragedy started unfolding Wednesday when the body of the family’s oldest daughter, age nine, was found washed up on the shore of a large lake south of Oslo, called Gjersjøen in Oppegård township.
Meanwhile, her mother’s sister and brother-in-law had contacted police when they’d been unable to reach any family members. When the police also had trouble getting any response, and no one had seen any of them since Tuesday, they entered the family’s home at Mortensrud and there found the bodies of the 37-year-old mother and her 14-week-old baby girl. The father and the third daughter in the family, age seven, were missing.
Police then launched a massive search for him as a murder suspect, even blocking off the main highway to the south out of Oslo Wednesday night to examine cars. Divers continued to search the lake, meanwhile, and found both his body and that of the seven-year-old girl during the night.
“This is an unusually serious and sad case,” Rohde told NRK. She said police would also be questioning relatives and others who knew the family, for clues into the massacre. The father had emigrated from Iran to Norway and became a Norwegian citizen in 1999. His wife was from Morocco but had permanent residence permission in Norway, while all three daughters were Norwegian citizens.
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
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