On Christmas Day, the lifeless corpses of a mother and her four children were discovered in their Meaux apartment (France), at 9pm in the evening, prompting a homicide investigation.
The victims, a 35-year-old mother and four children aged 10, 7, 4, and 9 months, were killed with a sharp weapon, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Relatives alerted the police after they were unable to contact the mother, who was confirmed dead by Meaux Public Prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier.
With no evidence of forced entry into the apartment, the 33-year-old father, who was not present at the scene, became the subject of a police manhunt. This morning, he was apprehended in Sevran, Seine-Saint-Denis, at his father’s house, according to police sources.
The Public Prosecutor described the crime scene as “extremely violent,” indicating that a judicial investigation had been launched on the basis of alleged “voluntary manslaughter of minors under the age of 15” and “voluntary manslaughter by spouse.”
The mother and two girls, aged 10 and 7, were found dead with numerous stab wounds and defensive injuries. The other two victims, a 4-year-old boy and a 9-month-old baby, showed no apparent wounds. The most likely cause of death was drowning or suffocation, according to Bladier.
The prosecutor discovered pools of blood and blood-stained handkerchiefs and paper towels, as well as medical records suggesting the father had been subject to psychiatric commitment after a potential psychiatric incident, along with tranquilizer prescriptions in the family’s apartment.
According to French media, a neighbor stated that she had been meant to spend Christmas Eve with the 35-year-old mom, but she was unable to reach her. The neighbor’s son later knocked on the door. “Everyone’s asleep,” the father answered.
The next day, December 25, the neighbor returned and discovered blood trails in the building’s corridor.
In 2019, the father, who was described as “psychologically fragile,” assaulted the mother and stabbed her with a knife. Due to the husband’s condition, the case was dismissed at the time since he was mentally unstable and had lost all sense of reason.
This terrible episode is one of a number of disturbing family calamities in France, which includes two recent incidents of triple infanticide perpetrated by fathers. In late November, a 41-year-old man confessed to murdering his three daughters in Alfortville, alleging a protracted custody struggle with his ex-spouse.
In another incident, according to the Pontoise public prosecutor’s office, a gendarme took the lives of his three daughters before killing himself in Vémars, Val-d’Oise, in October.
Domestic violence is on an upward trajectory in France, with 118 women slain in 2022, a 15% increase from 2021, attributable primarily to relationship breakdowns. A femicide occurs every three days, according to the French Interior Ministry’s most recent data, indicating a huge increase in gender-based violence.