Suicide pact suspected after British women found dead

By Charlie Charalambous

TWO BRITISH women found dead yesterday outside their holiday home in Paphos were the victims of a suspected suicide pact.

Police named the victims as Jean Pollak, 69, and her close friend Janet Anne Deubert, 44, who had only arrived on the island several days ago from the UK.

They were found in a decomposing state inside Pollak’s VW Golf parked in the garage of her Anarita village luxury home.

One of the neighbours — in the village not far from where the BBC filmed Sunburn– suggested that the two women were devoted friends.

A hose pipe was found attached to the exhaust and leading in through the closed front window of the vehicle, police said, making the likely cause of death carbon monoxide poisoning.

What convinced police that the two women committed suicide were several letters found in the kitchen of Pollak’s villa, and the fact that there was no sign of any criminal act.

“We found several stamped addressed envelopes in the kitchen addressed to members of Pollak’s family. There are no criminal circumstances suspected,” a police source said yesterday.

One of the goodbye notes said the women “were tired of life”, according to one informed source.

A British resident of Anarita, William Beechey, discovered the bodies at 11.30am yesterday when he went to Pollak’s home after not seeing her for three days.

Pollak, originally from London, had been living on the island as a permanent resident for the past six years.

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