Mother admits drowning babies found in freezer

A 32-year-old woman has admitted drowning two of her newborn babies, after their tiny corpses were found in a freezer at her home in eastern France, a prosecutor said on Tuesday. In a separate incident, the body of another baby was found buried in a planter near Paris.

Published: 26 March 2013 16:22 CET

Mother admits drowning babies found in freezer

Photo: AFP

The 32-year-old woman, identified only as Ms. C, had been in custody since Sunday, when her partner called officers to the house after discovering one of the corpses. When police arrived at the home, they found the second body.

"She has said that she killed the two babies by drowning and that both of them were born alive," the prosecutor in charge of the case, Denis Mondon, told reporters.

The babies were both boys and died in autumn 2011 and autumn 2012 respectively, according to the woman's confession, the prosecutor said.

If autopsies confirm that the babies were drowned alive, Ms C. will be charged with aggravated murder as she had a previous conviction for infanticide."

"In the state they were discovered it is very difficult to establish the age of the corpses and whether they were new-born or still-born," Mondon, told AFP.

Local newspaper Le Progrès reported that the woman, a waitress, had been convicted in 2005 of killing a new-born child she had given birth to in 2002 after a pregnancy she had hidden from friends and family.

In that case, the woman's mother was convicted of helping her daughter to dispose of the body, according to Le Progrès.

In a separate tragic incident on Tuesday, the body of another baby was found buried in a planter outside a block of flats in Pantin, a suburb north-east of the French capital.

The macabre discovery was made by the caretaker of a building after his dog began digging up the soil, French daily Le Parisien reported.

An investigation has been opened by police and an autopsy is due to be carried out on the baby, the age of which has not yet been determined.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.