Police sketch of Rotana (left), 22, and Tala, 16, Farea, whose bodies were found bound with duct tape facing each other in a cross formation. Photo / AP
Police sketch of Rotana (left), 22, and Tala, 16, Farea, whose bodies were found bound with duct tape facing each other in a cross formation. Photo / AP
These two sisters were from a happy family, but last week their fully clothed bodies were found bound together with duct tape in "a macabre cross-like configuration".
The Saudi-born Farea sisters, Tala, 16, and Rotana, 22, were both dressed in black leggings and jackets, one on top of the other in the shape of a cross.
Lying on the banks of the Hudson River, on New York's Upper West Side, one girl was wearing a bomber jacket with a fur-fringed hood, the other a grey hooded down jacket.
Responding to a call on October 24 about unconscious persons, New York Fire Department officers went to Riverside Park South of West 71st Street, about 2.40pm.
Below the pylons of a platform the girls bodies lay, facing each other and bound together at the ankles and waist by duct tape.
No visible signs of trauma marked the sisters' bodies, which reportedly were not badly decomposed, indicating they had recently died.
Identified two days later, Tala and Rotana were two of four children of Wala'a and Abdulsalam Farea, who emigrated from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to the US a few years ago.
While we continue the expansive investigation into the deaths of sisters Tala & Rotana Farea—whose bodies were found on Oct 24 at the edge of the Hudson River in Manhattan—we urge anyone w/ info to call CrimeStoppers 800-577-TIPS @NYPDTIPS
They were into fashion, but not very active on social media, communicating with relatives back in Saudi only via Snapchat.
The family, said to be financially well off, had settled in the suburbs of Fairfax, a city in northern Virginia with a population of around 25,000.
The crime scene after the two Saudi-born girls were found duct taped together, facing one another. Photo / WTVR
The Fareas wanted to send their children, including sons aged 18 and 11, to better schools with father Abdulsalam, returning frequently to Saudi Arabia for his job.
The day before the bodies were discovered, the sisters' mother told detectives that she had received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, ordering the family to leave the US because her daughters had applied for political asylum, New York police said.
Saudi Arabia's consulate general in New York said in a statement that it had "appointed an attorney to follow the case closely". It said embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and "extended its support and aid in this trying time".
Tala had a full-year scholarship from one of Jeddah's most prestigious schools, Dar Al-Fikr.Rotana had recently moved to New York, where she was studying computer and information technology at college.
A Saudi family member told arabnews.com the sisters were "happy and supported" and that the girls could not have committed suicide.
The relative described the girls as humble, shy, gifted at school, calm and polite.
On August 24, Wala'a Farea reported Tala as missing to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
But police withdrew an amber alert on Tala after they located the 16-year-old living with her older sister in New York.
"Tala was upset for quite some time after her sister decided to continue her studies in NYC," the Saudi relative told arabnews.com.
"They were a happy family. They were comfortable and at ease with everyone.
"Their mother was naturally protective, but in no way was their household problematic for them to run away.
"All families have problems. What kind of sibling relationship would it be without fights every now and then?
"But that didn't push them to the edge as the Western media is portraying."
The Hudson River separates New York from New Jersey, and the NYPD is now scouring the river banks to see if they can establish where the sisters entered the water.
Police are considering if the sisters died in a suicide pact, possibly jumping from the George Washington Bridge, 10km north of where their bodies were found.
But investigators have not ruled out that they were murdered.
Autopsy results on the sisters have not yet been released.
