THE FRENCH mother who killed eight of her newborn babies is relieved her secret has finally been revealed, her lawyer has said.
Dominique Cottrez, a 46-year-old care worker, confessed to suffocating eight of her newborn babies and hiding their corpses at two homes in the northern village of Villers-au-Tertre. Police believe the babies were born between 1989 and 2007.
Ms Cottrez, who has two adult daughters and two grandchildren, was detained after she confessed to police earlier this week and was still being held by police in Douai yesterday. Psychological tests are being carried out to determine her criminal responsibility.
After 20 years, “she doesn’t have to carry this on her conscience any more, and that’s a kind of relief,” her lawyer, Frank Berton, told journalists yesterday.
He added that Ms Cottrez was “tired, worn out and demoralised” after her questioning and “in a state of considerable confusion”. Ms Cottrez told police her husband, a carpenter and local councillor in Villers-au-Tertre, was not aware of her pregnancies or her decision to kill the babies.
He has been released without charge, and he now “wants to understand” what happened, his own lawyer said yesterday.
“He discovered everything while in custody, while his wife was being questioned,” said Pierre-Jean Gribouva. “He wasn’t aware of it . . . It came as a shock.”
Mr Gribouva said the man was “calmer” yesterday morning. “He was still in monumental shock, very much affected by it, very emotional,” he said. “But even though he is very emotional, the fact that he has been released, that he has his daughters with him [means] he is calmer, and he has confidence in the justice system.”
Neighbours described the couple as kind, popular members of the community and spoke with disbelief of the reports that have given the sleepy dormitory village its newfound notoriety.
"It's incomprehensible. We can't believe something like this could happen," Dominique Cottrez's brother-in-law, Yves Cottrez, was quoted as saying by the daily Le Parisienyesterday. "My brother saw nothing, even though he sleeps next to his wife . . . but Dominique was always heavily built – it didn't show when she was pregnant with her two daughters."
The Douai prosecutor, Eric Vaillant, has said Ms Cottrez told police she suffocated the eight babies because “she didn’t want more children and that she didn’t want to see a doctor to avail of contraception”, adding her first pregnancy had been a terrible experience.
It was in a farmhouse on Rue de Fressain, which once belonged to Ms Cottrez’s late parents, that the remains of two babies were found by the current owners while digging in their garden last Saturday.
When police were alerted, they traced the find back to the Cottrez couple, who had sold the farmhouse and moved to a new, modern home on Sentier du Pré, a residential cul de sac on a hill at the other end of the village.
Police found the corpses of six babies wrapped in plastic bags and hidden in a garage behind this house.