Mother charged after two babies found dead in French family’s freezer
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The bodies of two babies were found by police in a freezer at a house in Ailleviller-et-Lyaumont, eastern France, on Feb 12.
PHOTO: AFP
- French police detained a woman after two newborn babies were found dead in a freezer in eastern France.
- A man found one baby on Feb 10; police then discovered a second. The mother was arrested Feb 11.
- This latest suspected infanticide deeply shocked the small village, following similar cases in France.
AI generated
STRASBOURG, France – The mother of two infants found dead in a freezer in eastern France has been charged and placed in pre-trial detention, a prosecutor told AFP news agency on Feb 13.
The case is the latest suspected instance of infanticide to emerge in France in recent years.
Prosecutor Cedric Logelin told AFP the 50-year-old woman was charged late on Feb 12, a day after she was arrested in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and admitted to freezing her newborns.
No one else has been charged, he added.
The grim discovery was made after the woman, who had nine children from three different fathers, had abruptly left the family home in the eastern town of Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont in December.
She left behind four of her children aged 14 to 20, their father, and a fifth child from another relationship.
On Feb 10, a family member discovered the body of a newborn baby in a freezer.
After the family raised the alarm, police discovered a second body in the same freezer, wrapped in a bag.
Suspicion quickly focused on the mother.
The woman, who was arrested in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt on Feb 11, admitted to having frozen her two babies after they were born, prosecutor Cedric Logelin told a news conference.
“She had wrapped the newborns immediately after giving birth and then immediately placed them in the freezer, located in the laundry room,” said Mr Logelin.
The woman had worn loose-fitting clothes to hide the pregnancies from her family and friends.
“During questioning, she cried very frequently and said she felt sorry for her children and her family,” the prosecutor added.
The suspect was unable to say when exactly the babies were born.
She said the children were born between 2011 and 2018 when she returned to work, said magistrate Christine de Curraize.
Her partner, who was also taken into custody, claimed that he was “unaware of these pregnancies and was taken completely by surprise”, the prosecutor said.
An autopsy will be performed on Feb 13 to determine the exact circumstances of the infants’ deaths.
In Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont, seals were visible on the shutters of a light-coloured, one-storey house with an open gate, an AFP photographer noted.
A judicial investigation has been opened for the murder of minors under the age of 15, crimes punishable by life imprisonment, said Mr Logelin.
The public prosecutor’s office has requested that the suspect be placed in pre-trial detention.
‘We’re stunned’
Mayor Jean-Claude Tramesel expressed his “shock” after learning of the discovery.
“It’s a small village of 1,500 inhabitants. When it comes to news stories like this, you always think it happens somewhere else,” he told AFP. “We’re stunned.”
Referring to the couple, Mr Tramesel said that they “have lived in the town for about 20 years but do not work here”.
“They are people who keep to themselves,” he added.
In 2022, two newborn babies were discovered in a woman’s freezer in southern France. Prosecutors said their deaths were “not natural in origin”.
In 2015, five bodies were found in a similar case, which saw the mother handed an eight-year jail term.
Another case which went down in French legal annals was that of Veronique Courjault, who received an eight-year sentence in 2009 for killing three of her newborn children. AFP
