Police: Saudi sisters in NYC since Sept. 1 after other stops

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Police investigating the mysterious deaths of two Saudi Arabian sisters whose bound bodies washed up in New York City last week say they arrived from Fairfax, Virginia, on Sept. 1.

Police said Thursday that credit card records show 16-year-old Tala Farea and 23-year-old Rotana Farea first stopped in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.

The sisters were last seen in Fairfax on Aug. 24. Their bodies were discovered Oct. 24 on the Manhattan waterfront.

Police say there were no signs of trauma and it appeared that they were alive when they went into the water.

The New York Police Department says there's no evidence the sisters went anywhere else after arriving in New York. Police wouldn't say how they traveled or where they stayed.

They were reported missing in Fairfax on Sept. 12.

These two undated photos provided by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show sisters Rotana, left, and Tala Farea, whose fully clothed bodies, bound together with tape and facing each other, were discovered on on the banks of New York City's Hudson River waterfront on Oct. 24, 2018. The Farea sisters from Saudia Arabia, Rotana, 22 and Tala, 16, had been living in Fairfax, Virgina and were reported missing in August. Their mother told detectives the day before the bodies were discovered, she received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian Embassy, ordering the family to leave the U.S. because her daughters had applied for political asylum, New York police said Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. (NYPD via AP)