Mother charged after two babies found dead in family's freezer

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 on Friday.

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 Thursday 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 Tuesday, a family member discovered the body of a newborn in a freezer.

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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 had worn loose-fitting clothes to hide the pregnancies from her family and friends, the prosecutor had explained.

The suspect was unable to say when exactly the babies were born, but said the children were born between 2011 and 2018.

“During questioning, she cried very frequently and said she felt sorry for her children and her family,” the prosecutor had said.

An autopsy will be performed on Friday to determine the exact circumstances of the infants’ deaths.