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By Jonathan Dienst and Dareh Gregorian
The two Saudi sisters whose bodies were found linked to Hudson River, New York, were short of money and did not want to go home, investigators said Friday.
At a police headquarters briefing in Lower Manhattan, New York Police Detective Chief Dermot Shea sheds new light on the mysterious disappearance of the sisters – and on their macabre death, whose Law enforcement officials have already told NBC News that it was a suicide.
"It's a tragedy all around," Shea told reporters on Friday, adding that there was "no credible information about the fact that a crime had occurred" .
The sisters Rotana Farea, 23, and Tala Farea, 16, reportedly disappeared from their mother 's home in Fairfax on August 24 – two months after the previous day, their bodies fully clad, crushed on the rocks, in the air. Upper West Side. of Manhattan, taped together at waist and feet and facing each other.
The chronology revealed on Friday differs from previous reports. Shea revealed that none of the sisters had lived with their parents since November 30, 2017, the day they fled.
He added that there were allegations of abuse involving other family members, which have not been corroborated. But the two men were removed from the house and placed in a "refuge" in Virginia similar to that reserved for victims of domestic violence, he said.
They stayed there until August 23 or 24, when they disappeared.
The police have been able to largely retrace their steps through detective work, but "still have gaps to fill," said Shea.
The older sister's credit card records show that they headed to Washington after leaving Fairfax for Philadelphia. They arrived in New York from 1 to 11 September before being reported missing.
Shea said the sisters had stayed at several "upscale hotels" in Manhattan and had used their credit cards to shop and order meals together.
The detectives are also investigating the asylum claims they made in the United States. The detectives learned that the sisters had already said, "They would rather inflict injury, commit suicide, than return to Saudi Arabia," Shea said.
The deportation was "a fear of theirs," he added.
In video, the police were able to get the pair about a week before their death. They did not seem to be distressed and seemed "to be healthy and alone".
But that might have changed in the days that followed. Shea said "it was very likely that the money would run out" because the older sister had used her credit card to the fullest.
Police told a witness that they saw the two men at a riverside playground in Riverside Park, Manhattan, that morning, where their bodies were found. They were sitting about thirty meters from each other, hands in their heads. They seemed to be praying.
Shea said the witness, who seemed credible, described the scene as "haunting".
Shea noted "you could walk directly into the water" from the area where they were seen.
NYPD investigators said Thursday that the sisters appeared to be alive when they entered the river because their lungs were filled with water and that there was no sign obvious of trauma. The office of the medical examiner studies the cause of death. A law enforcement official told NBC News that suicide remains "a fundamental theory".
The two men had arrived in the United States with their mother and brothers, all citizens of Saudi Arabia, in 2015, according to the police.
"The citizens were students accompanying their brother to Washington," the Saudi consulate general said in a statement earlier this week.
By adding to the mystery, the Associated Press reported that their mother had told detectives that the day before the discovery of the bodies, she had received a call from a local embassy official. Saudi Arabia, ordering the family to leave the United States as the girls had asked. political asylum.
Shea said Friday that he could not confirm this report and that he was not sure where the parents were.
The Saudi Consulate General in New York said in a statement earlier in the week that he had "appointed a lawyer to follow the case closely".
