Bodies of Swiss couple who disappeared 75 years ago found on glacier

Wow. 280 recorded people missing in the area.

Saddest part of the article:

Regarding how the 7 children were split up and placed in different homes: “We all lived in the region but became strangers.”


You’re making this statement in relation to police investigating multiple corpses? This is sickening. And by the way, if you wait till the coroner assigns a cause of death before calling the police, (oops!) youve already contaminated and destroyed the crime scene. Enough with the doctrinaire libertarianism.

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Valais cantonal police said two bodies bearing identity papers had been discovered last week…

Went out to milk the cows, brought their papers along. Just in case something untoward were to happen. Wie Schweizer!

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That’s just the thing - without a crime, there is no crime scene. If homicide was a regular occurrence would be different, but statistically hardly any deaths involve legal problems. So the expertise that is needed is forensic medicine, not law. (not that police in many places are experts on law, either) It is symptomatic of people in some societies difficulty in accepting death as a natural, normal event.

It is symptomatic of people in some societies difficulty in accepting death as a natural, normal event.

The simultaneous ignorance plus condescension is stupefying. Do you own the entire Ayn Rand oeuvre?

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If you like, feel free to refute or criticize anything I said, but I am not interested in having some personal/emotional exchange. The attempts to make personal remarks and labelling the character of my posts is bad rhetoric.

I don’t “own” anything, FWIW.

Statistically, hardly any deaths are homicide, and on an intellectual level people know this. When your car breaks down, do you begin to investigate the sabotage, despite the chances of that being negligible? It is an adversarial approach to problem solving, and it gets ossified into social institutions. It helps people to feel that they are vigilant, that they are doing something to keep physical or social entropy at bay.

He said, labeling the character of your posts.

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Next on Fox, “WHEN GLACIERS ATTACK!”

Luckily we’ve got coal to burn to make sure this tragedy isn’t repeated,

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Most European countries 1) have had some form of personal ID 2) “since always” and the legal obligation to have them on you, theoretically all the time 3).

1) The parts of Europe the Brits lovingly refer to as “Continental Europe”, anyway. Who doesn’t remember The Time’s legendary headline “British channel fogged in - Europe completely cut off”?

2) “Papers”. In this context, not a passport, but something like a national ID card. Although today, if you are a citizen of a country that is a member of the Schengen group, you’re good to go into any other country in the Schengen group without a passport, using your ID card.

3) Usually not a big deal if you don’t.

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I read the BBC article about the kids being split up. I agree with you that this was the saddest part.

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My father died from cancer at home in 1980. We had his oncologist pronounce him dead to avoid calling the police, who would have to call the coroner.

If one dies under hospital/doctor care (hospice, rest home, etc), this is the only way to avoid the police. Otherwise, cops will be called.

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I think they were saying their mother was often pregnant and that kept her from going out very often, not necessarily that at the time of disappearance she was pregnant.

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The police generally show up if dead bodies are suddenly discovered to because they’re associated with the local coroner and also like to check if there’s any signs it wasn’t an accidental or natural dead.

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I dont think you have the slightest idea what the procedures are for investigating a potential crime scene. There’s a pretty complex decision tree that goes into it. It’s just sensible that a police is initially called to the scene of a discovered human body.

Statistically, hardly any deaths are homicide, and on an intellectual level people know this.

And in those common cases, an officer arrives. He fills out a form. He leaves.

It’s almost like, rare as it is, society really cares about figuring out whether a death was natural or intentionally caused by another human being.

I don’t “own” anything, FWIW.

I could go into a diatribe about how: That’s how the rich libertarians trick the not-rich. They have (or can afford) everything they want, so why should their taxes go towards other people’s student loan programs, healthcare, education, parks, childcare, etc.? They equate their laissez-faire capitalism with “freedom.” But I won’t.

When your car breaks down, do you begin to investigate the sabotage, despite the chances of that being negligible?

So you’re comparing a car breakdown to a dead body?

I just feel it’s kind of unfair that I’ve been given the “pro” side of the debate question: “Should police be called to a site where a dead body has been found?”

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Who else would one contact if one finds bodies lying around? Seems to me the only choices are mountain rescue or the police.

In that part of the world, those might be the same people. :slight_smile:

Also, more seriously:

“Die Walliser Kantonspolizei führt eine Liste der Personen, die seit 1925 in den Bergen oder in Gewässern als vermisst gelten und konnte so den Fund abgleichen.”

from here:

My crappy translation for those who don’t read German:

The cantonal police keep a list of people reported or considered missing in the mountains or lakes since 1925 and so were able to match the find.

You can either take that as an outrageous intrusion of the police state or a perfectly sensible thing to do.

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I wondered if that was why they fell down the crevasse in the first place … after all, many drownings are drunk fisherman who stand up to take a piss and fall overboard.

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Exactly this. She had been pregnant on previous times he went up there. This was the first time she wasn’t.

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I see; I completely mis-read the article. Thanks!

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I like your pedant hammer, I didn’t know they came in that color.

That was merely minmal “maintain pedant pendant merits” level, but thanks anyway!
(Way below “hammer” level. You wouldn’t like “hammer” 1) level.)

Also, “colour”.

1) Currently available as: rubber-faced, machinists’, ball-peen, sledge and claw; plus the local variant Mottek. Apparently all of them can also be used as a plexor.

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