French mother charged with killing eight of her babies - Telegraph

Website of the Telegraph Media Group with breaking news, sport, business, latest UK and world news. Content from the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph newspapers and video from Telegraph TV.

A French mother, Dominique Cottrez, has been charged by with murdering eight newborn babies in the village of Villers-au-Tertre, near Lille .

The 45-year-old nursing assistant, who also has two grown-up daughters, is said to have been "systematically killing her babies since 1988".

Her husband Pierre-Marie, 47, a local council handyman, has been questioned but no charges have been made against him for concealing the bodies of the babies, which were all found wrapped in plastic bags.

The first discoveries were made after the new owners of a house in Villers-au-Tertre found human bones in their garden.

They alerted police on Saturday, who found the remains of two children hidden at around their home and garden.

After tracking the previous occupants to another house just half a mile away, they found the bodies of six more children hidden at that property.