The police intervened at around 10:40 am this Sunday in an apartment in Colmar where a 30-year-old woman was screaming and throwing objects out of the window. The police 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.
Several hypotheses studied
The mother was briefly taken into custody for voluntary homicide aggravated by two circumstances: by an ascendant and on a minor (under) 15 years old.
Given her state of mental health, deemed incompatible with police custody, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit.
“Several hypotheses – not only criminal ones – are being examined by investigators. There are many question marks and this woman is presumed innocent, great caution is required,” argued the Colmar prosecutor, Jean Richert.
Questioned at the end of the day on Monday, Jean Richert declared that the infanticide theory was “preferred but other hypotheses, including non-criminal ones, are not excluded”. “A very serious working hypothesis implies the intervention of a third party”, he continued.
Autopsy planned
An autopsy of the child’s body must be performed. “This will involve characterizing the injuries in more detail, determining what caused the death, and comparing these elements with the mother’s explanations, when she can be heard,” added the magistrate. “To date, it is particularly appropriate to ask whether this woman could have killed her daughter in a fit of rage, or whether she could have suffered a breakdown after discovering that the little girl was dead. This is one of the hypotheses to be studied.”
“The little girl was a student at a primary school in the town. Our education department and the National Education system are working to support her classmates and the educational community in the face of this horrible tragedy,” wrote Colmar Mayor Éric Straumann on Facebook, praising the intervention of the emergency services, “deeply affected by this terrible scene.”
