Bodies of 8 newborns found in house in French village.

[Marv]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...me-garden.html

A couple have been arrested in northern France after eight newborn babies were discovered hidden in their house and buried in their garden.

Police in Villers-au-Tertre, near Douai, made the gruesome discovery using sniffer dogs.

All of the children are believed to have been born to the man and woman, who are aged around 45, said a source close to the inquiry.

‘We searched the premises and the garden following a tip-off,’ said a detective. ‘What is certain is that the new born babies all had the same parents.

‘They were stuffed inside plastic bags and then buried. Six babies were found very quickly around the house, and the other two were discovered in the garden.’

The detective said that the parents were being held in Douai on suspicion of failing to report a crime, and the concealment of corpses.

The Douai prosecutor has opened a judicial investigation, and bail has been refused. Charges were expected this week.

Neither of the parents has been named.
[...]

Police are still digging up the garden of the house in Villers-au-Tertre, and a protective fence had been placed around the property.

‘The search is still going on – both inside and outside the house,’ said a police officer at the scene.

Villers-au-Tertre is a village in the far north of France, with a population of about 600.

Police used special sniffer dogs to make the gruesome discoveries after receiving information

[Tundratot]

I'm pretty sure that French women have access to birth control. If this woman and her husband felt that somehow birth control was a sin, I wonder how they think it stacks up to murder. And, interesting concept of home and garden decor . . . yeeesh.

[Valasca]

Yeah, I'd not mind bodies in my yard, but they gotta be fake, and NOT of babies.

[Tundratot]

Police used special sniffer dogs to make the gruesome discoveries after receiving information

Makes you wonder who tipped them off, and how that person knew about it.

[Parrot Toes]

In a small town of 600 people?.....and they get ONE tipster 8 babies later?.....I think 599 other people may have turned a blind eye as well.

I grew up in a small town with a population 3 times that. I tell you, you couldn't even sneeze without everyone knowing it. Everyone knows everyone and their business, sex life, meal schedules, and bathroom habits. How does a couple manage to hide 8 newborns? I'm baffled.

[horsegirl]

I read that new occupants found two bodies when having a pool dug, police then searched the former occupants garden and found more. The new occupants moved into the Grandfathers house.
The father has been released.
The "mother" is grossly obese (so husband could well have been ignorant of pregnancies) and didn't used contraception as she was afraid of doctors...
Last I heard you could buy condoms in most places...I dunno, I just don't know

Will find a link for above info

She admits it




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10799539

Mrs Cottrez said she was fully aware of her pregnancies, but that she did not want any more children and did not want to see a doctor for contraception, the prosecutor in the case said at a news conference.

"This is a case outside of the norms given the number of newborns," he added.

Mrs Cottrez said that after a first difficult birth because of her heavy weight, she did not want to see any more doctors. She was alone in her pregnancies and while giving birth, the prosecutor said.

When I see cases like this, I think of my little lost boy and want to weep

[Marv]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...-newborns.html

A French nursing assistant was today charged with the murder of eight of her newborn babies.

Dominique Cottrez, 45, is thought to have 'systematically' killed the children over the past 22 years before hiding their tiny bodies in black bin liners. She faces life in prison.
[...]

Cottez, who with her husband has two surviving adult daughters, made a brief appearance at the Palais de Justice in Douai, northern France, this morning.

Bail was refused, and she is expected to be kept in custody until her trial next year.

In what is thought to be the worst case of infanticide in French history, Cottrez confessed to the killings after eight corpses were found at the current and previous family homes in nearby Villers-au-Tertre.

But Cottrez insisted that her husband, a handyman who works for the local council, knew absolutely nothing about the dead babies.

Both were described by a neighbour as 'pillars of the local community', where they lived with one of their adult daughters, and a young grandson.

'Dominique is a lovely women who was devoted to other family members, and especially children,' said the neighbour.
[...]

It is believed that the killings started in 1988, and it was only a chance discovery of two of the bodies on Saturday which led to a judicial investigation being launched.

'The macabre suspicion is that this has been going on for 22 years with nobody in authority being any the wiser,' said a judicial source.

'If it wasn’t for somebody finding some bones while digging a pond and becoming suspicious then nobody would have known about these crimes.'

It is feared that Cottrez may have used some of her medical training to carry out the killings. As a nursing assistant she would have had regular access to a variety of potentially lethal drugs.
[...]

The new owners of Cottrez's old house found the remains of two children on Saturday while they were digging a duck pond in the garden.

Police forensics experts were summoned, and six more bodies were found hidden in various parts of the houses, including underneath a boiler.

The couple were immediately taken into custody in Douai, where a tearful Cottrez is said to have spoken openly about what happened, even suggesting that she had 'lost at least eight babies' since 1988, said a judicial source.
[...]

Detectives fear that more bodies may be found in the days ahead.

[Mystica43229]

ouai, France (CNN) -- French prosecutors said Thursday they charged a woman with murder after she admitted giving birth to and smothering eight babies over a 17-year period in northern France.

The woman, Dominique Cottrez, said she hid the pregnancies and deaths from her husband, who said he had no idea what she had done, prosecutor Eric Vaillant told reporters. Cottrez is overweight and was able to conceal the pregnancies, he said.

Cottrez told investigators the reason she killed the babies was that she did not want to have any more children and did not want to see doctors for contraceptives, Vaillant said.
Despite earlier reports that the husband had been charged, Vaillant said he was free to go but may still be investigated. Vaillant said he personally still had "doubts" about the father's story.

"The sky has fallen in on his head," Vaillant said of the father, Pierre-Marie Cottrez. "He indicated he had no idea she was pregnant."

Vaillant said there are no other babies' bodies left to be found.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe...ex.html?hpt=T1

[Tundratot]

Mrs Cottrez said that after a first difficult birth because of her heavy weight, she did not want to see any more doctors. She was alone in her pregnancies and while giving birth, the prosecutor said.

Not afraid of the possible consequences of a bad pregnancy, just afraid of the doctor. If she indeed a bad delivery, owing to her obesity, how did she overcome this by delivering her babies alone?

A French nursing assistant was today charged with the murder of eight of her newborn babies.

Afraid of the doctor?!!! And . . . she's a medical worker?!! I don't get it.

It is feared that Cottrez may have used some of her medical training to carry out the killings. As a nursing assistant she would have had regular access to a variety of potentially lethal drugs.

Access to lethal drugs, and to contraceptives . . .

There is no logic in this story. I just can't follow her reasoning.

[sleepingwithghosts]

What causes the condition? Several things, Delcroix says, including previous trauma such as beatings and rape. But other, nonphysical factors can also be involved, and denial can kick in even if a woman has already had and raised children without a problem — Lesage has a 14-year-old son; Dominique Cottrez has two grown daughters. And while pregnancy denial has been around for decades or longer, Delcroix says it's rising in frequency. The probable reason, he says, is changes in wider social factors that have downgraded the value of childhood, parenting and family.

But in some cases, it can also be a matter of women simply failing to see themselves as mothers. "Some women never manage to update their self-identity during pregnancy, [while others] want to become pregnant without wanting to procreate," psychiatrist Pierre Lamothe told Le Parisien on Thursday. "When the child arrives, it doesn't really exist for them. They don't give it life, in psychological terms. If they saw it as a [real] baby, they wouldn't kill it."

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...007359,00.html

[Tundratot]

Thanks for the article, but I still say that's b.s. The value of childhood has been going up in the last century or two, not down. Perhaps parenting and family have lost some value recently, but I doubt it -- especially in a country that pays a premium to families to have children and which advertises to encourage women to have more children. It's true that people may have other things they want to do with their lives and money than have children, but how does that mean they can't use birth control? And why would a woman who is a successful mother of two need to update her self-image? It doesn't compute and I may explode trying to suss it out.

[Aena]

I can't believe in a village of 600 and no one leaked the names before the prosecutor did..amazing! My little town has a population of 600 and everyone knows everything about each other. We know who has been arrested usually within about 10 mins of arrest, crazy how small towns work like that.