It is a terrible tragedy which unfolded in Haute-Savoie at the start of the week.
Three children from a blended family living in Taninges, two boys aged 2 and 11 and a girl aged 13, were found dead Tuesday afternoon by their relatives, killed by a knife.
The mother of the two eldest children, who lived at the family home with her partner and the latter's 2-year-old son, has since been sought.
Mixed reviews
A woman's body was discovered on Wednesday in Switzerland in the car of the suspected mother. Checks are underway to determine if it is indeed her.
Aged 45, Deborah Pel has been a teacher since the start of the school year in Marnaz, in the Arve valley.
Well known locally, the forty-year-old taught in several schools in Haute-Savoie, where she was born, and is described in Le Parisien as a “super teacher, very popular at school”.
“She was my daughter's teacher for two years without there being any problem (…) She was a smiling, pleasant person. She was perfect with my daughter. Impossible that such a radiant person could have done such a terrible thing.”reports a mother.
A testimony in contradiction with other speeches made by parents about her while she was still teaching a few kilometers away, in a school in Samoëns. The subject of a petition and several reports from mothers, the teacher had been singled out for her severity towards students.
“She was not at all cut out to be a teacher. She was obnoxious to childrenconfides a grandmother in Le Dauphiné Libéré. My grandchildren were in her class and their parents had complained about this teacher's behavior. She made them stand because they were moving too much, threw kits in their faces.”
Of dual nationality – French and Swiss, Deborah Pel was involved in local life. Flutist, she was a member of the municipal harmony of Samoëns and treasurer of the town's music school.
