A mother suspected of having killed her two young children, aged 9 months and two and a half years, was arrested and placed in police custody on Tuesday evening February 16 in Drouville, near Nancy (Meurthe-et- Moselle), we learned from the public prosecutor, François Pérain.
Aged regarding 35, the mother of the family is suspected of having first attacked her husband, who was only slightly injured, before killing her two children, probably by suffocating them. She would then have liked to end her life, but was arrested by the gendarmes before she might take action.
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 followingnoon, 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.
It was not until the early evening that the mother of the family returned home to look for a stuffed animal of her daughter, declaring to her husband that the child had to be buried with this object. 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.
“She was arrested and taken into custody, but for the moment she is mute”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.
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.
