French mother's relief after confessing baby killings

Dominique Cottrez - World News - Marie Claire

(Image credit: Rex Features)

French mother, Dominique Cottrez, expresses relief after admitting to the killings of eight of her newborn babies

The lawyer representing the mother who killed eight of her newborn babies has said his client is relieved that the secret is out in the open.

Cottrez is under investigation, which could lead to the charge of voluntary homicide and life imprisonment.

Her lawyer, Frank Berton, has revealed that although she is tired and worn out, she is grateful she doesn’t have to carry this on her conscience any more. ‘That’s kind of a relief,’ he said.

However, bewildered relatives are still trying to come to terms with the horror of the crimes after skeletal remains were discovered in plastic bin bags in the garden and garage.

‘It’s incomprehensible. We can’t believe something like this could happen,’ Yves Cottrez, the defendant’s brother-in-law, told Le Parisien.

‘We’re in disbelief,’ Cottrez’s second daughter Virginie told regional newspaper La Voix du Nord.

The French media have also reached out to psychological experts to try and fathom how a mother could have killed so many of her babies.

Berton feels that the prosecutors in charge of the case were too quick to decide that she was fully aware of her pregnancies and what she had done.

In a news conference on Thursday, they announced that she had not wanted any more children, but had also not wanted to see her doctor for contraception.

Berton has said that Cottrez will now undergo psychological tests to establish whether she was indeed fully responsible for her actions.

‘For her part, she’s said what is essential,’ said Berton. ‘To analyse why it happened, that she doesn’t know,’ he added.

This horrific crime is shockingly not the first of its kind. It follows a series of similar cases in France over the last couple of years, where isolated and troubled mothers killed their newborns.

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Natalia is a health journalist with 14 years experience in the publishing industry. She has worked for a number of well known magazines and websites including Marie Claire, Woman&Home, Top Sante, Boots and The Telegraph. She likes to think she practices what she preaches when it comes to health and fitness. Her athletic prowess began early. A keen fencer for 13 years, she wielded an epée for Olympic Team GB during her teenage years. She likes to think she made sword-fighting cool before Game of Thrones came along! While working on her sporting performance with the team, she also participated in a lot of nutrition and psychology training, When it comes to time off, you’ll most likely find her up a mountain somewhere. It seems holidays have become a time for climbing several thousand feet, rather than chilling out. She’s now hiked eight of the major mountain ranges across four continents – including the Appalachians, the Smokies, the Sierra Nevadas (she spent her honeymoon hiking to the top of Half Dome), as well as hitting the summits of Snowdon, Pen-Y-Fan (Brecon Beacons), Table Mountain in South Africa, the Blue Mountains in Australia and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. She’s also passionate about all things health, particularly vaccinations, and will happily jump on her soap box at any given opportunity to talk about their benefits to anyone who will listen!