France: Five dead babies discovered in cardboard boxes

The bodies of five dead babies were found in an apartment in the historic center of Orange, in the Vaucluse, at the home of a family whose wife gave birth on Monday to a healthy baby.

The bodies were discovered on the second floor of an old building, a stone's throw from the ancient theatre. On Tuesday morning, bicycles and scooters were lined up in front of the apartment door, where police seals indicated: "murder of a minor (...)".

A source close to the investigation told AFP that the woman gave birth to a healthy baby on Monday. Her partner, who had taken her to the hospital for stomach pains according to the same source, was unaware of her pregnancy. The man's confused statements, mentioning other possible cases of pregnancy denial, reportedly led police to search the couple's home on Monday evening.

They then discovered the remains of five newborns, according to multiple sources, in cardboard boxes.

A neighbor, Philippe Constant, told AFP that he was woken around 11:00 PM on Monday by police who rang his doorbell, searching for the couple's apartment, holding a photo of the mother. He also saw forensic officers arrive, "all dressed in white, wearing masks and carrying cameras."

Another neighbor, living in the adjacent alley, Florent Jean, describes them as "charming people", in their thirties, who had arrived in the building about two years ago and who had two children attending the local elementary school.

- "normal people" -

On Monday, he saw the firefighters coming for the mother: "I thought to myself: +Is she pregnant? It's not possible+. She was so thin."

According to him, the woman "would pick up the children from school at lunchtime to eat", and the man "would go to work in the morning and come back in the evening", "normal people, you know".

When contacted by AFP, the Carpentras prosecutor's office declined to comment immediately.

Cases of repeated homicides of babies at birth are not rare, sometimes marked by an alteration of the mother's judgment or the denial of pregnancies that remained unknown to those around her.

In Vaucluse, a mother from Bedoin, near Mont Ventoux, was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison for the death of two of her infants, whom she had placed in the freezer.

In February, a 50-year-old woman was arrested after two babies were discovered in her freezer in Haute-Saône.

In the most serious French case of infanticide, Dominique Cottrez, a former caregiver, killed eight newborn babies whose bodies were discovered in 2010, buried in her parents' garden and in her own garage. She was sentenced in 2015, at the age of 51, to nine years in prison.

The jury at the Douai (Nord) Assize Court had determined that this woman, already a mother of two, suffered from impaired judgment.