Autopsy results awaited in French Alps shooting

ANNECY, France - Agence France-Presse

French gendarme police escort the car involved in the shooting of a British family on 05 September, in Dominiale de la Combe d'Ire near Chevaline, France, France, 06 September 2012. EPA Photo

French officials were awaiting results from the autopsies of the four victims of a mysterious Alps shooting that targeted a British-Iraqi family.
 
The autopsies were to be performed on Friday, with results expected either later in the day or early on Saturday, and prosecutors were expected to hold a press conference shortly afterwards on the findings.
 
The brutal shooting saw a husband, wife and her mother shot dead inside their car in France's picturesque Haute-Savoie region, which is popular with tourists including many Britons. A local man believed to have been passing by on a bicycle was also killed.
 
Two young girls believed to be the daughters of the husband and wife survived and were under police protection.
 
They included a seven-year-old who was shot and received "extremely violent" blows to the head and was in a medically induced coma, and a four-year-old who survived the attack and cowered beneath her dead mother's skirt for eight hours before being discovered by police.
 
All four of the victims were shot in the head with what is believed to be an automatic pistol and the killer did not appear to have fired indiscriminately, French prosecutors said.