A mother killed her two young children, aged 9 months and two and a half years, in Drouville, near Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle). She was arrested and taken into custody.
Aged about 35, the mother of the family first assaulted her husband, who was only slightly injured, before killing her two children, presumably by suffocating them. She then wanted to commit suicide but she was arrested by the gendarmes before she could take action.
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The prosecutor explained that the husband had initially been assaulted with a hammer on Tuesday morning, without being seriously injured. He was able to go to the hospital for treatment and then went to the gendarmerie to report the attack, but when he returned to his home his wife was no longer there.
At the very beginning of the afternoon, she picked up her two children at the crèche where they were normally in custody for the day. The gendarmes then set out to find her and tried to locate her, without success at first.
The bodies of the children in the passenger seat
It was not until the early evening that the mother of the family returned home to look for a stuffed animal of her daughter, telling her husband that she had to be buried with it.
The gendarmes, who were watching the house, managed to catch up with the young woman and discovered the bodies of her two children in the passenger seat at the front of the car.
“Mutique”, she was taken to the hospital
“She was arrested and placed in police custody, but for the moment she is silent,” said François Pérain. “She was taken to the hospital to find out if her condition is compatible with police custody”.
“The medical examiner is examining the bodies of the two children, who are believed to have died of suffocation, but this will have to be confirmed by an autopsy,” added the prosecutor.
Depressions and relationship problems
The mother of the family is not injured and the gendarmes found writings in her car indicating that she then wanted to commit suicide. Apparently psychologically fragile, she would have suffered from episodes of depression in the past and had relationship problems.
A psychological unit has been set up for the gendarmes and firefighters who intervened in Drouville.
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