The bones of five dead babies were found in the south-east of France, at the home of a family whose wife had just given birth to a healthy baby.
The mother’s companion is at the origin of the discovery, according to prosecutors, who announced Tuesday that they had opened an investigation into the murder of a minor under 15 years old.
The man, aged 32, was “disturbed by the very late discovery once again of the pregnancy of his partner, who had given birth (Sunday) at home before being transported to hospital”. At home, he undertook “research” and discovered “what looked like human remains”. Still according to prosecutors, the man notified the Orange hospital center which alerted the prosecutor’s office.
Police searched the couple’s home, an apartment in Orange city center, on Monday evening.
A forensic doctor estimated “that the bones and decomposing body discovered belonged to five infants,” said the prosecution, confirming information from sources close to the investigation. An autopsy of the body will be carried out and the bones will be analyzed in the laboratory.
The mother, also aged 32 and still hospitalized after giving birth to a healthy baby on Sunday, has not yet been interviewed by investigators, according to the prosecution.
The couple, who also have two children aged eight and nine, live on the second floor of an old building, a stone’s throw from the ancient theater of Orange.
Tuesday morning, bicycles and scooters were parked in front of the apartment door, where police seals read: “murder of minor”.
A neighbor, Philippe Constant, told AFP that he was woken up around 11 p.m. (6 p.m. Quebec time) on Monday by the police who rang his house, looking for the couple’s apartment, a photo of the mother in their hand.
Another neighbor, living in the adjacent alley, Florent Jean, describes “charming people”, who arrived in the building about two years ago and who had two children attending the local elementary school.
According to him, the woman “went to pick up the children at lunchtime from school to eat”, and the man “went to work in the morning and came back in the evening”, “normal people, that is”.
Cases of repeated homicides of babies at birth are not rare, sometimes marked by an alteration in the mother’s discernment or the denial of pregnancies that remain unknown to those around her.
In the most serious French case of infanticide, Dominique Cottrez, a former caregiver killed eight newborns whose bodies were discovered in 2010, buried in her parents’ garden and in her own garage. She was sentenced in 2015, then aged 51, to nine years of imprisonment.
