A murder investigation has been launched after the bodies of a mother and her four children were found in a blood-soaked Paris apartment on Christmas Day.
Their 33-year-old father has now been arrested, following reports that he was missing and wanted by police in connection with the deaths in a suburb 25 miles northeast of the French capital.
The mother and her four children – two girls aged seven and 10, a boy aged four, and a nine-month-old baby – were discovered at around 9pm in a flat in Meaux, where prosecutors described finding “a very violent crime scene” and no sign of a break-in.
The mother, 35, and her two eldest daughters suffered so many knife injuries it was not possible to say how many times they had been stabbed, while the two youngest infants may have died by drowning or suffocation, prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said.
Autopsies are due on Wednesday, and an investigation into “intentional homicides with premeditation” has been opened and will be carried out by the judicial police of Versailles.
A police source told Le Parisien on Tuesday morning that the father had been arrested on Tuesday morning in Sevran, a commune in the capital’s outskirts, some 13 miles west of Meaux.
French police patrolled the building where five bodies were found dead in Meaux— (EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson)
Documents found during a search of the family’s apartment suggest the father was hospitalised in a psychiatric unit in 2017, and prescriptions for anti-depressants were also discovered, Mr Bladier said. He was known to police, having previously been accused of assaulting his wife with a knife in 2019, although she did not press charges and the case was dropped due to his mental health at the time, the prosecutor said.
Mr Bladier said in a previous statement: “Around 9pm, the bodies of five people were discovered in an apartment located in Meaux, after the alert had been given by relatives concerned about the lack of response from the occupants of the premises.”
“The apartment showed no signs of break-in and the father of the family was absent. The latter is currently wanted by the police,” the prosecutor added.
A neighbour and family friend told radio station RMC that she had been due to eat with the family on Christmas Eve, and had spoken to the mother at around 7pm, who confirmed that they would attend dinner after her husband returned home.
After the mother stopped responding around an hour later, the friend said she believed she was simply tired – but after still having received no news the next day, she ventured to their apartment to find “blood on the front door handle” and alerted the police.
The woman described the mother as being “very jovial and very kind”, and “like a sister, always there for us”, adding: “She lived for her family, her children and for her husband. Her children are friends with my children, they are in the same class in the same school.”
The Paris region has suffered a number of infanticides this year, with a 41-year-old man confessing in late November to killing his three daughters – aged four, 10 and 11 – in the southeastern suburb of Alfortville.
The previous month, a police officer killed his three daughters before taking his own life at his home in Val-d’Oise.
