Spouses’ bodies found perfectly preserved in a Swiss glacier after they vanished 75 years ago

A couple that disappeared in the Alps 75 years ago has been found preserved in a receding glacier, ending decades of uncertainty for their seven children, the Daily Mail reports, citing the Swiss media.

The bodies of Marcelin Dumoulin and wife Francine were found lying near each other in the Diablerets massif in southern Switzerland, along with backpacks, a bottle, a book and a watch. 


Marcelin, a 40-year-old shoemaker at the time, and Francine, a schoolteacher aged 37, had left their village of Chandolin to milk their cows in a meadow above Chandolin in the Valais canton on August 15, 1942.

The couple never returned from their trip, and officials at the Glacier 3000 ski resort said that the couple had likely fallen into a crevasse. 

The head of the resort, Bernard Tschannen, said that the bodies were found last Thursday. They were discovered by the Tsanfleuron glacier at an altitude of 2,615m. 

“It was a man and a woman wearing clothes from the last (world) war', Tschannen told the Le Matin daily. 'The ice preserved them perfectly and their belongings were intact”.

Local reports say they were identified by their wartime identity papers.

A DNA search has been planned to definitively establish their identities, but Marceline Udry-Dumoulin said she believed the remains were of her parents.

“We spent our whole lives searching for them, without stopping. We never thought we'd be able to give them the funeral they deserved,' Dumoulin, who was four when her parents went missing, told Le Matin.