The tragedy occurred Thursday evening. After attempting suicide while driving, a father admitted on Friday to having killed his 3-year-old daughter and his 20-month-old son, whose bodies were found in a field in Essonne. The suspect was taken into custody. 20 minutes takes stock of the investigation.
What happened ?
The gendarmes intervened Thursday evening, around 11:30 p.m., in Pussay, in Essonne. A man who “tried to kill himself in a car” explained “that he had just killed his two children,” said the Evry prosecutor’s office. The victims were found in Forges-les-Bains, about forty kilometers south of Paris, where he had indicated he had left them.
According to The Parisian, who revealed the information, they were discovered in the trunk of a car, parked near a recycling center located not far from the scene of the accident. “The bodies showed signs of stab wounds on the chest for one and on the neck for the other,” a source close to the case told the daily newspaper.
Where is the investigation?
The father was taken into police custody. His wife was found safe and sound at her sister’s home. An investigation was opened into assassinations and entrusted to the Palaiseau research brigade as well as the research section of the Paris gendarmerie. “The family was from Yvelines,” said the prosecution, which did not immediately provide any information on the family or marital context of the case.
Are there any precedents?
It comes at a time when recent news has been marked by three multiple infanticides perpetrated by fathers in the Paris region. A 33-year-old man, suspected of having killed his wife and their four children shortly before Christmas at their home in Meaux, in Seine-et-Marne, “in a very violent crime scene”, was arrested. under examination.
At the end of November, a 41-year-old man, already convicted of domestic violence, went to a police station to confess to the murder of his three daughters aged 4 to 11 in Alfortville (Val-de-Marne). He notably mentioned a conflict context with his ex-partner regarding child custody.
A month earlier, in October, a gendarme had killed his three daughters before killing himself at his home in Vémars in Val-d’Oise. The facts also took place “in a complicated family context” according to the Pontoise public prosecutor’s office.
How widespread is the phenomenon?
In 2023, more than 60 children were killed by their parents, according to La Voix de l’Enfant, an association which compiles a count based on cases reported in the media. A report submitted to the government in 2019 estimated that a child was killed every five days. However, there are no official annual figures, regret the associations.
According to a study on “violent deaths within couples”, published last September by the Ministry of the Interior, 12 infanticides were committed in 2022 in France “against a backdrop of marital conflict”. Of these 12 victims, eight were killed concomitantly with the homicide of one of the parents. The same year, the ministry recorded 118 femicides.