LONDON (AFP) ― British police on Tuesday arrested a 49-year-old man, reported to be the heir to the Tetra Pak packaging fortune, after his wife was found dead at their luxury London home.
Officers identified the woman as 48-year-old Eva Kemeny and said her body was found after police conducted a search of the five-storey house she shared with her husband at Cadogan Place in the wealthy London borough of Chelsea following the man’s arrest.
Metropolitan Police detained the man at a south London police station on suspicion of possession of drugs and also in connection with the death.
Officers from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command were investigating, and the death was being treated as unexplained, police said in a statement.
The man, reported to be Tetra Pak heir Hans Kristian Rausing, later left the station in order to receive medical attention, according to the statement.
Eva’s family said they were “deeply saddened by the death of their beloved daughter,” in a statement issued Tuesday.
“Eva was a devoted wife for 20 years and mother of four much-loved and wonderful children,” it continued.
“During her short lifetime she made a huge philanthropic impact, supporting a large number of charitable causes, not only financially, but using her own personal experiences.”
She is the daughter of a wealthy Pepsi Cola executive whose family live on an exclusive island off the South Carolina coast.
Rausing and his wife, who met in a U.S. addiction clinic, spent much of their time in Barbados, where they owned an 11-bedroom mansion.
The Rausing family also released a statement, saying they were “deeply shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic death of their daughter-in-law.”
Rausing’s cousin, Kirsten, said the news was “very, very tragic.”
