According to the prosecution office in Orange, France, a man discovered the remains of five newborn babies in his apartment on July 26 after his 32-year-old wife gave birth to a healthy child at home. Police launched a raid on the apartment, and investigators opened a formal murder probe.
Apartment Raid and Forensic Investigation in Orange
Police searched the couple’s apartment on the second floor of a residential building near the ancient theater in Orange, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). A forensic doctor determined that the discovered bones and decomposed remains likely belonged to five newborns, as stated by the prosecution. Officials plan to conduct autopsies and laboratory testing on the remains.
The mother remains hospitalized following the birth of the healthy baby and has not yet been questioned by investigators, according to official statements. The couple also shares two other children, aged eight and nine, who attend a local primary school.
Neighbor Accounts and Local Reaction
Neighbors interviewed by AFP described the family as ordinary residents who had lived in the building for about two years. Neighbor Philippe Constant told AFP that police woke him around 11:00 p.m. while searching for the family’s apartment with a photograph of the mother. Another neighbor, Florent Jean, characterized the couple as very pleasant people whose children attended the local primary school. Jean noted that the mother walked the children home for lunch at midday while the father went to work in the morning and returned in the evening, calling them completely ordinary people.
Legal Precedents and Psychological Context
Cases involving multiple killings of newborns are not unprecedented in France. Such incidents frequently connect to psychiatric disorders in the mother or instances of denied pregnancy—a psychological phenomenon where the pregnancy remains unrecognized by both the mother and those around her. The most severe comparable case in France involved Dominique Cottret, a former nursing assistant sentenced in 2015 to nine years in prison for murdering eight newborns. Authorities discovered those bodies in 2010, buried in her parents’ yard and the family garage.
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