Orange, France: Bodies of five infants found at home in cardboard boxes after man raised suspicion

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A city has been rocked after police found the bodies of five infants inside cardboard boxes at the home of a couple.

The shocking discovery was made after a 32-year-old woman — who is also the mother of two children, aged eight and nine — gave birth to a baby on July 26 in Orange, France.

On July 28, prosecutors said the woman’s male partner, also aged 32, had been “troubled after discovering once again very late that his partner was pregnant”, according to Le Monde.

When he searched their home in the historic city in the Rhône Valley he found “what looked like human remains” and notified the hospital, who contacted the prosecutor’s office.

A murder investigation was launched on July 27 after the couple’s home was searched.

After examination, a forensic doctor said the bodies likely belonged to five newborns but autopsies will be carried out.

The partner told police he knew nothing about his partner’s possible pregnancies.

The public prosecutor’s office called on child welfare services to carry out an urgent assessment of the situation of the couple’s eight and nine-year old children.

It also issued a provisional placement order for the baby born on Sunday pending referral of the case to a children’s court judge.

The mother, who is still in hospital, after being brought there a day after giving birth at home, has not yet been interviewed by investigators.

It was not immediately clear whether she had legal representation.

A post-mortem examination has been ordered on the decomposing body, and the bones will undergo anthropological analysis in a laboratory, prosecutors said.

- With Reuters

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