In France’s worst ever infanticide case, nursing assistant Dominique Cottrez, 50, admitted to strangling eight of her newborn babies and hiding their bodies in bin liners. She says she murdered the infants between 1989 and 2000 because she didn’t want to use contraception. Her grisly actions were discovered when when the new owners of a house discovered human bones buried in their yard. They alerted the police, who then searched the property where Cottrez and her husband had moved to, and discovered additional bodies buried there. Cottrez is attempting to argue that the statute of limitations has passed for prosecuting her, but a French court isn’t buying the argument and intends to try her next year.
The Daily Mail reported,
Public prosecutor Eric Vaillant told an initial court hearing in 2010 how Cottrez, who was obese, had managed to hide her pregnancies within her 20-stone frame.
‘She managed to hide the fact she was pregnant because she was very overweight,’ he said.
‘She told investigators that when she became aware she was pregnant she decided she did not want any more children but also did not want to see a doctor for contraception.
‘She has admitted giving birth in secret and then suffocating the babies and disposing of the bodies.’
Husband Pierre-Marie Cottrez, 48, has denied knowing about the babies being born or killed.
The couple have two surviving daughters, Virginie, 22, and Emeline, 23 – who have one son each. Emeline described her mother as a ‘doting granny’ to her child.