LEEUWARDEN – Dutch police say they have arrested a 25-year- old woman on suspicion of killing four of her babies over an eight-year period, echoing a similar case in France last week.
Authorities said they searched the woman’s house in a rural village in the north of the Netherlands and found four suitcases in the attic, each containing the remains of babies. Initially, only three bodies had been confirmed to have been found.
Police say suspicions were raised when a resident alerted police, saying there was uncertainty about the births.
The woman had said she gave the children up for adoption, but later confessed to putting their bodies in suitcases.
“She could not give a plausible explanation over the pregnancies and the babies that were born. She was then arrested on August 4th in consultation with the public prosecution as a suspect and a search was conducted in the parental home,” police commissioner Wim van Essen said.
It is not clear whether the babies – born between 2002 and 2010 – were born alive, said Leeuwarden prosecutor Annette Bronsvoort at the news conference yesterday, held at the Leeuwarden court.
“It is terrible, the village is in shock,” said a local resident in the village of Nij Beets, about 140km northeast of Amsterdam. “The woman is very well-known in the village,” he added.
The police commissioner said the woman’s parents had been moved out of the house while the police search continued. The parents said they were not aware of the pregnancies and were not suspects, police said.– (Reuters)