French Woman Jailed After Confessing She Killed her Eight Infants

PARIS, July 29, 2010— -- Eight candles burned today in front of the "house of horror" in Villers-au-Tertre, a quiet little village in northern France that was stunned to learn that a villager has admitted to giving birth to eight children and then smothering them.

Six of the tiny corpses were found in plastic bags stored in her garage, while two others were buried in the garden of an adjacent yard.

Dominique Cottrez, a 45-year-old nursing assistant, has confessed to killing her eight newborn children at birth and hiding their bodies, police told a news conference today. She is in jail after a judge placed her under formal investigation, one step away from being formally charged for "voluntary murder of minors under the age of 15."

Her husband, Pierre-Marie, a 47-year-old carpenter, was questioned by a judge, but has not been charged with any crime. He remains free. The couple has two other daughters in their 20s.

"The mother, Madame Cottrez, has admitted to having voluntarily suffocated (to death) the newborns at birth between 1989 and 2006 or 2007," Eric Vaillant, the public prosecutor of Douai, told the news conference.

"Monsieur Cottrez told investigators that he never knew his wife was pregnant as she is rather stout or that she got rid of the children immediately following their births " Vaillant said. "His whole world turned upside down" when the husband found out, the prosecutor said. "Madame Cottrez has confirmed her husband's accounts."

The grisly discoveries began on Saturday when a couple who was gardening found the bodies of two infants buried in their garden. They immediately alerted the gendarmes, and the couple was quickly cleared of any wrongdoing.

The investigation then focused on the previous owners of the house, the now-deceased parents of Dominique Cottrez. Questioned as a witness, Cottrez quickly confessed to killing the two infants found in the garden. She then pointed investigators to the other six bodies in her garage.