French mother relieved after admitting to baby killings

A French mother who killed eight of her newborn babies is relieved her deadly secret is finally out, her lawyer said yesterday.

Stunned relatives voiced disbelief that Dominique Cottrez, 45, hid eight pregnancies and births and smothered the newborns, whose bodies were found in bin bags in the quiet northern village of Villers-au-Tertre.

Ms Cottrez, a nursing assistant, has been charged with multiple murders after police found the skeletal remains of the eight infants, buried in a garden and hidden under household clutter in a garage.

The oldest of the babies is believed to have been born in 1989 and the youngest in 2006 or 2007, prosecutors said.

After 20 years, "she doesn't have to carry this on her conscience any more, and that's a kind of relief", lawyer Frank Berton told reporters.

He added that Ms Cottrez was "tired, worn out and battered down" after her questioning and "in a state of considerable confusion".

Stunned residents in the village laid flowers at the houses where the babies were found.

"It's incomprehensible. We can't believe something like this could happen," Ms Cottrez's brother-in-law Yves Cottrez was quoted as saying by the daily Le Parisien.

"And my brother saw nothing, even though he sleeps next to his wife... but Dominique was always heavily built, it didn't show when she was pregnant with her two daughters."

Press reports said that Ms Cottrez weighed 130 kilos.

She was charged with murder on Thursday after she admitted suffocating the eight newborns "because she did not want more children and wished to avoid seeing a doctor for contraception", prosecutor Eric Vaillant told reporters.

The new owners of her parents' former home found the remains of two babies buried in their garden as they planted a tree at the weekend. The other six infants were found dumped in plastic sacks in Ms Cottrez's garage.

Dr Berton said Ms Cottrez would undergo psychological tests to determine whether she was fully responsible for her acts. The lawyer praised his client for immediately cooperating with investigators after her arrest on Tuesday.

Ms Cottrez faces trial and life imprisonment. Her husband Pierre-Marie Cottrez was freed after denying any knowledge of the killings or the eight pregnancies.