French woman admits she carried her babies to term and killed them

Dominique Cottrez, 51, is on trial in France accused of suffocating eight of her babies, which she feared were the product of an incestuous relationship with her father.

The bodies of eight infants were discovered around the Cottrez family home in 2010.

 Leonard Meriaux discovered the first body after he bought the home from the Cottrez family. He called the police, who found another body in the garden and six more in the garage of the house.

Cottrez confessed to investigators that, over the course of a decade, she had carried several babies to term and then killed them.

According to court documents she told investigators that this had become a "means of contraception".

Cottrez, who has two grown-up daughters, appears to have been able to hide her pregnancies from her family, neighbours, colleagues and even doctors at a nearby hospital because she was overweight.

 

Court documents show Cottrez told investigators that she had been raped by her father when she was eight, and that he continued to abuse her throughout her childhood and teenage years.

Later, as an adult, she began an incestuous relationship with him which continued after she was married.

Her father died in 2007.

The verdict is expected next Thursday.