Geraldine Chaplin, the oldest child, had become a working actress in her own right. She had appeared in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago in 1965 and had built a substantial career in European and American film. Michael Chaplin had also worked as an actor. Victoria Chaplin had married the French circus performer and choreographer Jean-Baptiste Thierrée. Eugene Chaplin had settled in Switzerland. The extended family was not a reclusive one; they had lives in film, theater, and the arts.
What changed everything was the discovery of the empty grave on the morning of March 2.
The caretaker’s discovery set off an immediate sequence of events. Local Swiss police were notified. Tire tracks at the scene indicated that a vehicle had been brought close to the grave; the coffin, weighing over 130 kilograms in its oak construction, could not have been moved without machinery or several people. Investigators began canvassing the area and interviewing anyone who might have observed unusual activity in or near the cemetery overnight.
Initially, investigators working from the physical evidence theorized that multiple people had been involved, given the weight of the coffin. The Notre Dame Observer, working from wire reports published approximately a week after the discovery, noted that authorities believed “at least three strong men” had been required. This initial assessment turned out to be wrong: the Washington Post’s May 1978 recovery report cited police saying they believed the coffin proved “lighter than first thought” and that no additional accomplices were involved. The two men who did it, it turned out, managed the job themselves, with the oak coffin and the physical labor of two working mechanics.