French police have arrested a man suspected of murdering a mother and her four children who were found dead on Catholic Christmas Day, a police source said.
Local prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said the bodies of the mother and children, aged nine months, four, seven and 10, were found in their apartment in Meaux, east of Paris, after concerned family members alerted police.
The suspect was detained in the nearby town of Sevran.
The alarm was raised after the neighbor tried to reach the family several times and when she saw that the blinds were down, she concluded that something was wrong. She told French media that she found blood on the doorknob and outside the door, then called the police.
Police tracked down the suspect through CCTV footage and eventually arrested him at his father’s house in nearby Sevran.
Bladier said the suspect was known to police because of a previous case of domestic violence, although he had no criminal record.
In 2019, a month before the birth of the couple’s third child, the suspect attacked his wife with a knife, according to the prosecutor.
The Versailles Judicial Police Service launched an investigation.
Bladier said the mother and her two oldest daughters, ages 10 and 7, suffered “multiple stab wounds.”
The two youngest, a four-year-old boy and a nine-month-old baby, had no visible wounds on their bodies and are believed to have been strangled. Autopsies of the victims will be performed tomorrow.
Neighbors say the 35-year-old mother was “nice and talked to everyone.” According to acquaintances, the father was calm, but not pleasant. The wife allegedly talked about her husband’s depression after losing his job, and that he was receiving treatment for it.
After the attack in 2019, the mother did not press charges and the case was dismissed due to her partner’s mental health at the time.
Bladier said that during a search of the apartment, documents were found that could indicate a 2017 admission to a psychiatric hospital and a prescription for tranquilizers.
