Police Say Saudi Sisters Were Likely Alive When They Went Into The Hudson River, Bound Together

The dead bodies of Saudi Arabian sisters Tala Farea and Rotana Farea were discovered in the Hudson River along Manhattan on October 24. The two sisters were bound together when they were found, and police investigating their deaths have released a sickening detail about the way in which the sisters died.

According to NBC News, authorities believe that the girls, 16 and 22 years old respectively, were alive when they went into the river.

Tala and Rotana were bound together with duct tape around their hands and feet, and were fully clothed when their bodies were pulled from the water. They had been bound facing one another. At this stage, suicide “remains a leading theory” among investigators. Even so, the first theory — that they had jumped from the George Washington Bridge — seems considerably unlikely given that their bodies do not appear to have suffered any impact trauma. Such trauma would almost certainly have occurred when falling from such a significant height.

The sisters were first reported to be missing on September 12, but had in actual fact last been heard from on August 24, according to the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia — where the girls had been living.

Tala and Rotana had moved to the U.S. with their mother in 2015.

Sisters found dead along the Hudson River were Saudi citizens, though the case largely remains a mystery https://t.co/ZtkhaCacmN pic.twitter.com/dW3lo6AqgQ

— CNN (@CNN) October 31, 2018

Their mother has since told detectives that she was contacted by the Saudi Arabian Embassy merely a single day before her daughters’ bodies were pulled from the water. The family has been ordered by Saudi officials to leave the country — because Tala and Rotana had applied for political asylum in the U.S. before their deaths.

Per a previous report by the Inquisitr, that phone call to the girls’ mother is being included in the police investigation into their deaths.

New York Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea issued a statement on Tuesday regarding the investigation into the case.

“We are out to get justice for those two girls and find out exactly what happened.”

The Saudi Arabian Consulate General in New York has also stated that the State Department and the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington are both also investigating the mysterious deaths of the two sisters — adding that the consulate had “appointed an attorney to follow the case closely.”

Both girls had been students in Washington, along with their brother. Rotana had been enrolled at George Mason University, but a statement from the university says that she left the school in the spring. It is not the first time that the girls were reported missing. They were also thought to be missing in December 2017.