The deaths of two Saudi Arabian sisters who were found duct-taped together on the shore of New York City's Hudson River last October have been ruled as suicides, the city medical examiner's office said on Tuesday.
“Today, my office determined that the death of the Farea sisters was the result of suicide, in which the young women bound themselves together before descending into the Hudson River," New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson said in a statement Tuesday, reports Fox News.
"The sisters were two of roughly 500 known individuals citywide that committed suicide in 2018.”
The sisters, Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were found on Oct. 24 on the bank of the Hudson River near Manhattan's Upper West Side. They had been reported missing about 225 miles away in August in Fairfax, Virginia, where they had lived.
Their fully-clothed bodies were taped together and facing each other, but there were no obvious signs of trauma, according to the New York City police.
The sisters' mother told detectives that she'd received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian Embassy the day before her daughters' bodies were found, telling their family to leave the United States because the sisters had applied for political asylum, police said.
It was later learned they'd run away from their home in Fairfax before they were placed in a shelter after allegations they were being abused at home. They had moved to the United States from the Middle East in 2015 with their mother and two brothers, and were buried in Medina on Nov. 3.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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