A woman in her 50s has been arrested on suspicion of dumping the remains of two newborn babies inside a fridge, after one was found in Haute-Saône, northwestern France
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of double infanticide after a man found the frozen body of a newborn child stashed inside a fridge.
The woman, in her 50s, was arrested on Wednesday in Boulogne-Billancourt – a wealthy Paris suburb – after the bodies of two children were discovered hundreds of miles away in Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont, a town in Haute-Saône, northwestern France. She admitted to freezing the babies a month after their birth after claiming to have “hidden her pregnancies from those around her” before giving birth at home.
Several sources close to the case have revealed the arrest was made after a man discovered the body of one of the two babies stashed inside a fridge.
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Speaking to the AFP news agency, they said the body of one newborn was found in a freezer in the man’s Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont home. Police were called to the scene following the horrific discovery, and investigators subsequently discovered the remains of a second child.
A magistrate has since revealed the suspect, who has no criminal record and was already a mother-of-nine, had given birth at home and left in December.
She was arrested a few hours after the grim discovery, 186 miles away in the Paris region where one of her two sons reportedly lives, with police contacting the mayor of Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont. The mayor, Jean-Claude Tramesel, told AFP officers had informed him the streets would be closed throughout the night, without initially revealing the details of the distressing incident.
He added he and other residents of the town were left “stunned” after he learned the reason behind the closures. He said:”This is a small village of 1,500 inhabitants. We always think that such incidents happen to other people… We are stunned.”
He said the woman and her partner had lived in the town for around two decades and had not drawn “attention to themselves”. He added: “They are people who have lived in the town for about twenty years but do not work there. They are people who do not draw attention to themselves.”
He added that he had no idea “how the events unfolded”, adding: “I was asked to go to the gendarmerie for what could be called neighbourhood inquiries, and I have no information about how the events unfolded.”
The Lure Criminal Investigation Brigade and the Besançon Criminal Investigation Section have taken on investigation of the case, with public prosecutors saying the babies were placed in the freezer some time between 2011 and 2018.
Besançon prosecutor Cédric Logelin said during a press conference that the two had been placed in bags and were recovered during “technical and scientific police operations”. He said: “Another bag was discovered in the same freezer during the technical and scientific police operations. Inside there was a second newborn’s body.”
He claimed that the women “admitted to being the mother of the infants found in the freezer” but was unable to state with any certainty when they were born. He said: “She said that she had given birth at home, wrapped up the newborns immediately afterward, and then placed them in the freezer. She knew she was the only user of the freezer.”
