MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police have found four people from three generations of the same family dead in their apartment where they had lain for at least two years.
A spokesman for Moscow city prosecutors told local media skeletons were all that remained of the man and three women who seemed to have died at different times in the past decade.

"The oldest family member, a grandfather born in 1912, died about 10 years ago. Five years later his wife, who was born in 1914, died," the spokesman told Interfax news agency.

"The deaths of the others, a daughter born in 1942, and a grand-daughter born in 1971, also came at different times."

Itar-Tass news agency quoted neighbors as saying the dead people had been secretive members of a religious sect.

Police were called to the apartment after complaints the family had not paid utility bills for two years. They broke down the door when there was no answer to repeated calls.