The police intervened on Sunday morning in an apartment in Colmar. A 30-year-old woman was screaming and throwing things out the window. After controlling her, the police found her eight-year-old daughter dead in her bed.
An eight-year-old girl was found dead in an apartment in Colmar (Haut-Rhin) where her mother was arrested before being hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, we learned on Monday from a judicial source. “Several hypotheses – not just criminal – are being examined by investigators. There are many question marks and this woman is presumed innocent, great caution is required,” argued Colmar prosecutor Jean Richert.
A screaming mother and a dead little girl in her bed
The police intervened at around 10:40 a.m. on Sunday in an apartment where a 30-year-old woman was screaming and throwing objects out of the window. The officers used their electric shock pistol to try to subdue her and then managed to handcuff her to the ground to arrest her. Her eight-year-old daughter was found dead in her bed. “There are indications of injuries to the face and chest, the origin of which remains to be confirmed. We cannot yet conclude on a specific cause of death,” said the Colmar prosecutor.
The mother was briefly placed in police custody for intentional homicide aggravated by two circumstances: by an ascendant and against a minor (under) 15 years old. In view of her state of mental health, deemed incompatible with police custody, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit.
Towards an autopsy
An autopsy of the child’s body must be carried out. “It will be a question of characterizing the lesions in more detail, of determining what caused the death, and of comparing these elements with the mother’s explanations, when she can be heard,” added the magistrate. “To date, it is particularly appropriate to ask ourselves whether this woman could have killed her daughter in a fit of rage, or whether she could have suffered decompensation after discovering that the little one was dead. This is one of the hypotheses to be studied” .
“The little girl was educated in a primary school in the city. Our education service and National Education are mobilized to support her classmates and the educational community, in the face of this horrible tragedy” wrote the mayor of Colmar Éric Straumann on Facebook, welcoming the intervention of emergency services “very distressed by this terrible scene”.
