The two girls, aged six, found dead in November at their home near Pontarlier in Doubs, had been drugged by their mother who then suffocated them in their sleep before killing herself, the Besançon public prosecutor announced on Thursday.
“The results of toxicological examinations carried out on the bodies showed that the two children had been drugged before being “killed” by asphyxiation,” Étienne Manteaux told AFP, confirming information of Republican East.
“The twins were chemically subjected to anxiolytics and antidepressants at adult doses. Which clearly plunged them into an altered state of consciousness,” said the magistrate. “And the most likely scenario is that the mother gave her children this drug cocktail at the end of the meal. Which plunged them into a deep sleep” and would have “allowed him to suffocate them afterwards”.
For the public prosecutor, “the fact that the mother shows no signs of chemical submission fully confirms that she is the author of the assassination of her two daughters”.
Separation
Last November, the lifeless bodies of this woman, aged 51, and her two children, who were about to be seven years old, were discovered at the family home in Grand’Combe-Châteleu, a town adjoining the Swiss border.
The emergency services discovered the mother’s body directly above a beam to which an electric cable had been attached which had broken. Investigators noted that the victim’s airways were blocked by adhesive tape, which led to his slow asphyxiation. The two children, dressed neatly, were lying in their mother’s bed, under a blanket. Their autopsy revealed deaths from asphyxiation.
The house in which the events occurred had been acquired by the couple, separated since 2021. A separation experienced painfully by the mother, according to the public prosecutor of Besançon.
The latter had been the subject of a reminder of the law following malicious messages sent to the father after their separation. The couple had filed for divorce. The termination of the public action, linked to the death of the mother, was notified to the father of the children at the end of December.