A child's body was found in a rucksack around 400ft down a cliff alongside the bodies of a man and a woman, police have said.
The three bodies were recovered from near the bottom of Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, after being spotted by coastguards on a routine cliff top patrol on Sunday night.
A silver Volkswagen camper van found abandoned in a car park nearby was also recovered by police and is undergoing forensic examination.
Speaking at the 500ft cliff top, Eastbourne Coastguard station officer Stuart McNab said coastguards saw what they believed to be two bodies about 400ft down the cliff just before 8pm on Sunday but it was decided it would be safer to wait and carry out the recovery the following day.
Mr McNab said he found the child's body in a rucksack along with a second rucksack filled with toys.
He said: "The bag was closed when I got to it. I saw what I thought was a doll's head, but on closer examination it was a child."
He said the second rucksack had toys in it including a tractor and soft toys, but added that he did not look closely as he had to wait for police scenes of crime officers to go down to inspect the scene first.
A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said that after being recovered, the bodies were taken to Eastbourne District General Hospital for post-mortem examinations.
Officers are investigating the deaths and contacting next of kin before a formal identification is announced but they are not thought to be local.
At more than 600ft high, the cliffs at Beachy Head are a notorious suicide spot. In 2004, the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team was set up, whose members patrol the clifftop to try to prevent suicides.
