Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
27-12-2023
PARIS: Police in France on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of murdering his wife and four children in a knife attack early on Christmas Day, a public prosecutor said.
Their bodies were found on Monday night in a bloodied apartment in the town of Meaux, 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Paris.
Local prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said the mother and two daughters had been stabbed so many times it was impossible to determine how many blows they had received. The family’s two younger sons appeared to have been suffocated or drowned.
Police detained the children’s father, 33, at his residence in a nearby town on Monday night. The prosecutor has opened a murder investigation.
The children were aged between 9 months and 10 years. Neighbors told investigators they had heared screams during the early hours of Christmas Day. The alarm was raised later in the day after they failed to get any response from the family.
The husband had a history of mental illness, the prosecutor said. In 2019, he assaulted his wife with a knife. She did not press charges and the case was dropped due to his mental health at the time.
Investigators found medical documents and prescriptions for anti-depressants in the family flat, the prosecutor said.
The suspect had stabbed his partner once before when she was pregnant with their older son in 2019, but the investigation was dropped because he was declared mentally unsound at the time of the attack, the prosecutor said. 
He had been placed in a psychiatric hospital in 2017 and also attempted suicide that year.
The couple had been together for 14 years and had known each other since high school, Bladier said. They had their four children before they married in October.
Neighbors told investigators they had heard screams during the early hours of Christmas Day. The alarm was raised later in the day after they failed to get any response from the family.
None of the family members’ names were released, according to French law protecting minors who are victims of crimes.
Authorities are opening an investigation into five homicides, and the suspect will undergo psychiatric examination to determine the next steps, the prosecutor said.
On average, a woman is killed every three days in France. Some 118 women were killed by their partner or ex-partner in France last year. (Int’l News Desk)
