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Swiss Couple Missing For 75 Years Found Frozen On Glacier

The bodies of Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin were located near a ski lift.

The remains of a Swiss couple who went missing 75 years ago have been found "perfectly preserved" on a glacier in the Alps, according to local media reports.

The bodies of Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin, who were 40 and 37 when they went missing, were located near a ski lift above the village of Chandolin in the Swiss canton of Valais last week, Lausanne daily Le Matin reported. An employee of the cable car company Glacier 3000 found the bodies.

Shoes, clothing and other items are seen alongside the discovered bodies of a Swiss couple who went missing 75 years ago in the Alps.
Glacier 3000/Rex/Shutterstock
Shoes, clothing and other items are seen alongside the discovered bodies of a Swiss couple who went missing 75 years ago in the Alps.

The Dumoulins, who had seven children, were last seen in August 1942 when they ventured up to a mountain pasture to feed their cattle, their family said.

"It was the first time my mother went with him on such an excursion," the couple's youngest daughter, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, told the paper. "She was always pregnant and couldn't climb in the difficult conditions of a glacier."

The Swiss Alps are seen from the village of Chandolin, near where the couple's bodies were found.
rhkamen via Getty Images
The Swiss Alps are seen from the village of Chandolin, near where the couple's bodies were found.

Udry-Dumoulin, now 79, was just 4 years old when her parents vanished. She said that she and her siblings, who were separated after their parents' disappearance, "spent our whole lives looking for them."

"I can say that after 75 years of waiting, this news gives me a deep sense of calm," she said.

DNA testing will be done to confirm their identities, Valais police said in a statement.

A photo published by Le Matin shows boots and a glass bottle among the items found in the melting ice.

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The bodies of the couple were found lying next to each other and had clothing dating back to the World War II era, Bernhard Tschannen, director of Glacier 3000, told local media outlets.

"They were perfectly preserved in the glacier and their belongings were intact," Tschannen told Le Matin.

"We think they may have fallen into a crevasse where they stayed for decades. As the glacier receded, it gave up their bodies," he told the daily Tribune de Geneve.

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