An investigation was opened on Tuesday after the discovery of the bodies of three children aged 2, 11 and 13 in a house located in Taninges in Haute-Savoie. Their mother is still “actively sought” this Wednesday, November 13.
Three children from a blended family aged 2, 11 and 13 were found dead on Tuesday in the town of Taninges, in Haute-Savoie. The police are still carrying out major searches this Wednesday, November 13 to find their mother. Liberation takes stock of the elements already known in this case.
The facts
Emergency services were called around 12:30 p.m. to intervene in a house in Taninges, a mountain town 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. When the time arrived, they could only note the deaths, firefighters told AFP, confirming information from the regional daily The Dauphiné Libéré.
It was the father of the youngest child who discovered the bodies, reports BFMTV, returning to his home at midday, adds The Parisian. It was he who would have informed the police.
The victims are “two boys aged 2 and 11 and a girl aged 13”said Bonneville prosecutor Boris Duffau in a press release Tuesday evening. Autopsies and additional expertise will be quickly carried out by the Grenoble Medico-Legal Institute (IML), but “from initial findings, it is established that the victims have stab wounds”.
Criminal identification specialists left the village around 8 p.m., shortly before a funeral home removed the bodies of the three children, AFP noted.
The search to find the mother
The mother, aged 45 and a school teacher according to France Bleu Pays de Savoie, is depressed, the authorities report. She is “actively sought” since the middle of the day on Tuesday, according to a gendarmerie source. She would have left a letter then taken the direction of the Alpine massifs surrounding Taninges, according to The Dauphiné liberated.
A large device including around sixty gendarmes and a helicopter were mobilized for the search, a source close to the investigation told AFP.
The legal procedure
A flagrant investigation into “voluntary homicides” was opened and entrusted to the gendarmes of the Bonneville research brigade with the support of the Chambéry research section, the prosecutor said.
“The investigation continues to determine the exact circumstances of the commission of the facts”according to the prosecutor. “Several hearings from the close entourage of this blended family are currently underway”he added.
A medico-psychological emergency unit has been set up at Taninges town hall.
The previous ones
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.
Update : this Wednesday, November 13 at 7:36 a.m., with the continuation of the search to find the mother.
