Did Family Feud Lead to Grisly Alps Massacre?

The plot is thickening around the horrific massacre of a British family in the French Alps. Police say the killings bear the hallmark of a professional assassination—and they are questioning the brother of one of the victims. "It seems that there was a dispute between the two brothers about money," a prosecutor tells the AFP. The victims, identified as Saad al-Hilli, his wife, his mother-in-law, and an unrelated cyclist, were all shot in the center of their foreheads, a sign they were targeted.

"I won't say it was professional, what I will say is it was tremendous savagery," the prosecutor tells the BBC. "Somebody wanted to kill." Al-Hilli, a 50-year-old Briton born in Iraq, had been involved in a dispute with his brother over a $1.5 million inheritance, the Daily Mirror reports. Before leaving on vacation, al-Hilli told a neighbor that he feared for his safety. But al-Hilli's brother has already presented himself to British police to profess his innocence and cooperate. Al-Hilli's seriously injured 7-year-old daughter is doing better following surgery; the 4-year-old who hid under her mother's corpse has not revealed many more details, notes the prosecutor. (More French Alps stories.)