A macabre discovery. Three children aged 2, 11 and 13 were found dead in a house in Taninges, in Haute-Savoie, the gendarmerie announced on Tuesday. Their mother is “actively sought,” the Bonneville prosecutor said in a statement.
The man who discovered the bodies of the two boys, aged 2 and 11, and the 13-year-old girl before calling for help is the father of the youngest child, according to The Dauphiné Libéré. The three children had stab wounds, said prosecutor Boris Duffau. Dispatched to the scene around 12:30 p.m., emergency services could only note the deaths, the firefighters said.
An investigation into intentional homicides opened
The mother would have left a letter then taken the direction of the massifs surrounding Taninges, according to The Dauphiné Libéré. “Several hearings of the close entourage of this blended family are currently underway and the mother, aged 45, is actively being sought,” declared Boris Duffau.
“Autopsies and additional assessments will be quickly carried out by the Grenoble Medico-Legal Institute (IML), but from the first findings, it is established that the victims have stab wounds,” added the prosecutor.
A blatant investigation for “voluntary homicides” was opened by the prosecution and entrusted to the gendarmes of the Bonneville research brigade with the support of the Chambéry research section, he said.
A strong mobilization to find the mother
Around sixty gendarmes and a helicopter are mobilized for the search, a source close to the investigation told AFP. Gendarmes blocked access to a small isolated alley where the house where the tragedy allegedly took place is located, at the exit of the town, noted an AFP journalist. In the village there were also gendarmes from the Surveillance and Intervention Platoon (PSIG).
Criminal identification specialists left the scene around 8 p.m., shortly before a funeral home removed the bodies of the three children, AFP noted. The Bonneville prosecutor, Boris Duffau, who went to the site, could not immediately be reached.
A town of 3,500 inhabitants
Taninges is a commune of 3,500 inhabitants in the Giffre valley, approximately 50 km east of Geneva. Made up of a town center at an altitude of 600 m and several hamlets, it has a small ski resort at an altitude of 1,500 m.
Last week, two children aged one and four were found decapitated at their home in Sainte-Rose, Guadeloupe, and the mother, found wandering the streets of the town, was interned in a psychiatric hospital. According to the National Child Protection Observatory, 60 minors died violently within their family in 2022.
