The French Gendarmerie has located the bodies of five newborns in plastic bags inside cardboard boxes at a couple's home in Orange. The discovery was made after the woman was hospitalised following the birth of a healthy baby.
The French Gendarmerie has uncovered the bodies of five babies inside the home of a couple in the town of Orange, about 30 kilometres from Avignon in southern France. The finding occurred after the woman gave birth to a healthy baby last Monday.
According to sources close to the investigation cited by the AFP agency, the bodies were wrapped in plastic bags and stored inside cardboard boxes within the residence. The couple, who had no known criminal record, has two other children aged eight and twelve.
The husband discovered the boxes containing the deceased babies after the couple had argued several times about their contents, according to a source close to the case who spoke with the newspaper Le Parisien. While the woman went to the hospital with abdominal pains to give birth, the man took one of the bags containing the body of a baby there. The Orange hospital immediately alerted the authorities.
The Carpentras prosecutor's office, a nearby town to Orange, has declined to make any statements at this time, and the investigation remains open. Cases of repeated homicide of newborns are not uncommon in France. Last February, a 50-year-old woman was arrested after two babies were found in her freezer in Haute-Saône. The most serious case recorded dates back to 2015, when Dominique Cottrez, accused of murdering eight newborns, was sentenced to nine years in prison after the jury recognised that she suffered from a disturbance of her judgment capacity.
The news has shocked the French public, who are closely following the development of the investigations. Authorities are now looking into the circumstances of the deaths and the possible involvement of both members of the couple.
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